14<S 



NA TURE 



[July 29, 1909 



which London now tmjoys for secondary education are in- 

 sufficiently appreciated both by the parents and their 

 children. 



The second volume of the report of the U.S. Coinmis- 

 sioner of Education for the year ended June 30, 1908, has 

 been received from Washington. An important chapter, 

 running' to some 122 pages, provides exhaustive statistics 

 relating to the universities, colleges, and technological 

 schools of the United States. The total value of all gifts 

 and bequests reported by the institutions, of which the 

 Washington Bureau takes cognisance, during the year 

 under review, amounted to 2,964,200/. Of this amount 

 1,029,600/. was given for buildings and improvements, 

 1,468,300/. for endowment, and the remainder for current 

 expenses. Twenty-four institutions received 2o,oooZ. or 

 more during the year, the most fortunate of the universities 

 being Chicago, which benefited to the extent of 419,700/. ; 

 Princeton, 200,850/. ; California, 187,200/. ; and Harvard, 

 138,400/. The statistics deal with 464 American universi- 

 ties, colleges, and technological schools. For the year 

 1907-8 these institutions received 3,448,500/. from students' 

 fees, 811,000/. being for board and lodging. The grand 

 total of the receipts of the institutions reached the large 

 sum of 13,360,000/. In their libraries were 12,636,656 

 volumes. The value of their scientific apparatus, 

 machinery, and furniture was 5.588,300/. ; their grounds, 

 11,714,300/. ; their buildings. 42,878,000/. ; and their pro- 

 ductive funds, 51,954,000/. The institution had a teaching 

 force of 21,960, the number of men being 19.254. The 

 number of students under the tuition of this large staff 

 was 265,966. 



Ox July 21 Lord Monk Bretton asked in the House of 

 Lords what steps had been taken to define the spheres of 

 the Boards of Agriculture and Education, respectivelv, in 

 the matter of agricultural education. At the same time 

 he referred to the memorandum recently issued by the 

 Board of Education, which implied that a sum of 21,000/., 

 in part at any rate, is available for agricultural educa- 

 tion. He stated that he has been in communication with 

 the university authorities and others, and can find no 

 evidence that the money is used for this purpose. 

 Similarly, the Treasury grants and the block-grant svstem 

 of the Board of Education have not helped agricultural 

 education : money from the latter source, indeed, goes to 

 the relief of the rates. British agriculture, he pointed out, 

 receives much less money than the amount granted -." 

 foreign countries, a result due to the absence of agree- 

 ment and coordination between the Board of Education 

 and the Board of Agriculture. Earl Carrington, in replv. 

 stated that an understanding had that morning been arrived 

 at by the two Boards as to the general lines of their future 

 policy. There will be direct cooperation in regard to 

 educational work, and in particular with the view of 

 improving and extending specialised agricultural instruc- 

 tion. .An inter-departmental committee of officers of the 

 two Boards will consider the Questions that mav arise as 

 to the correlation of work and of grants. Everything is 

 working harmoniously between the two departments. 

 Lord Belner stronsrly urged that any arrangement between 

 the two Boards should follow the recommendation of the 

 Agricultural Education Committee that agricultural educa- 

 tion provided by colleges, farm institutes, and winter 

 schools should be under the direction of the Board of 

 Agriculture, while agricultural instruction given at even- 

 ing classes connected with elementary schools should be 

 under the Board of Education. The Marquis of Lansdowne 

 emphasised the great imoortance of the subject. Quoting 

 Sir Horace Plunkett's dictum, that what is wanted in 

 these days is not merely economic holdings, but an 

 economic system and an economic man to carry it out, he 

 went on to say that we cannot get the economic man to 

 carry out the economic system unless the Government 

 takes some pains to give him a proper education. 



The Staffordshire County Council Education Committee 

 has issued its scheme of agricultural education, and a perusal 

 of the circular shows that the committee is fully alive to 

 the difficulties involved. Provision is made Cnl'for those 

 already engaged in agricultural pursuits, and who therefore 

 can only devote their evenings to studv, or, at most, a few 

 weeks during the slack winter time ; (/>) for boys and girls 



leaving elementary schools. The former class always proves 

 difficult to get at. Lecturers in agricultural and horticul- 

 tural subjects are provided, at a merely nominal cost to 

 the locality, to give courses of six to twenty lectures. 

 Practical demonstrations are also arranged in cooperation 

 with the Harper .Adams College. These include : — (1) 

 Manurial experiments to show the effect of different manures 

 on crops and to compare different varieties of crops ; (2) 

 hedge-layering and ditching courses, which are necessarily 

 held in the day-time, and for which prizes are therefore 

 given by way of recompense ; (3) horticulture and fruit- 

 growing. There are also scholarships for short winter 

 cou/ses, tenable at the Harper Adams College or the Mid- 

 land Dairy College, which, however, have been very in- 

 adequately taken up in the past. Coming now to provision 

 for children leaving school, we find : — (i) Minor scholar- 

 ships awarded for the Brewood Grammar School (agricul- 

 tural side) ; (2) major scholarships for the Harper Adams 

 or Holmes Chapel College, or, in the case of women, the 

 Swanley Horticultural College. Farmers are apt to 

 grumble because boys who take up agricultural scholarships 

 subsequently find something they are better fitted for. Such 

 grumbling is, of course, wholly unreasonable, and shows 

 a want of appreciation of the true meaning of education. 

 We are therefore sorry to see a proviso that " candidates 

 who accept Brewood scholarships are expected to take up 

 agriculture on leaving school. No appointment as pupil- 

 teacher in any elementary school under the county com- 

 mittee will be given to boys who have held Breivood scholar- 

 ships." How can a boy of fourteen be expected to know 

 just what career he will succeed at best? Why should he be 

 penalised if he elects to go in for farming, and discovers, 

 two years later, that his bent is for teaching? Does not 

 the education committee know^ that to discovet- what a bov 

 can do, and to set him at it, is one of the great objects of 

 all education? 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 Edinburgh. 



Royal Society, June 28.— Dr. R. H. Traquair, F.R.S., 

 vice-president, in the chair. — At the request of the council 

 Prof. Louis Dollo, of the Royal Museum at Brussels, 

 delivered an address on the extinct gigantic reptiles of 

 Belgium. The history of their discovery and the manner 

 of their preservation were detailed in a most interesting 

 and racy lecture, the peculiar skeletal arrangements of the 

 iguanodon being soecially dwelt upon. 



Julv 5. — Prof. Cossar Ewart, F.R.S., vice-president, in 

 the chair. — Notes on the skeleton of a Sowerby's whale 

 (Mesnftlodon hideiis) stranded at St. .Andrews, and on the 

 morphology of the manus in Hvperoodon and in the 

 Delphinidre : Sir William Turner, K.C.B. This species of 

 whale was first recognised in 1800 from a specimen cast 

 ashore on the Moray Firth, and described by Sowerby. 

 Not until 1872 were other specimens found on the Scottish 

 coast. The present specimen led to some corrections of 

 former conclusions, especially in regard to the differences 

 of sex. Some interesting results were given in regard to 

 the comparative anatomy of the hand in this whale and 

 the allied genera of Hyperoodon and dolphins. The occur- 

 rence of five distal carpal bones in the Sowerby's whale 

 disposed of the theory that this number did not occur in 

 mammals. — Current and temperature observations in Loch 

 Ness : E. M. Wedderburn and W. Watson. The 

 observations were complicated, and at times conflicting, 

 secondary currents and cross-currents being frequent, and 

 evidently forming part of the circulation of the lake. Of 

 the general conclusions the following may be mentioned. 

 When the lake is of uniform temperature the direct current 

 produced by wind is felt to considerable depths, and the 

 return current is also felt in the deepest parts. When the 

 lake has become stratified and the temperature discontinuity 

 has appeared, the return current is almost always above the 

 discontinuity. When the wind changes direction or follows 

 a calm, the direct surface current is felt to considerable 

 depths, but after the wind has been blowing for about 

 twelve hours the return current asserts itself, and the 

 direct current is restricted to a narrower zone. — Petters- 

 son's observations on deep-water oscillations : E. M. 



