OcTouKR 2n, mon] 



SCIENCE 



591 



Brown, the United States Commissioner of 

 Education, and Dean Frederick C. Ferry, Wil- 

 liams College, from the New England Asso- 

 ciation of Colleges and Preparatory Schools. 



The ofEcers of the past year were reelected 

 as follows : 



President — President George E. jNIacLean. 



Vice-President — Headmaster Wilson Farrand. 



Secretary-Treasurer — Dean Frederick C. Ferry. 



The sub-committee of four, consisting of 

 Headmaster Farrand, President Pritchett, 

 Principal Bliss and Dean Ferry, appointed 

 at the 1908 meeting to formulate the defini- 

 tion of the minute for the measurement of 

 admission requirements, submitted a final re- 

 port on this question, which was adopted after 

 slight modification in the following form : 



(definition) 

 A unit represents a year's study in any subject 

 in a secondary school, constituting approximately 

 a quarter of a full year's work. 



(explanation) 



This statement is designed to aflford a standard 

 of measurement for the work done in secondary 

 schools. It takes the four-year high-school course 

 as a basis, and assumes that the length of the 

 school year is from thirty-six to forty weeks, that 

 a period is from forty to sixty minutes in length, 

 and that the study is pursued for four or five 

 periods a week; but, under ordinary circumstances, 

 a satisfactory year's work in any subject can nof 

 be accomplished in less than one hundred and 

 twenty sixty-minute hours or equivalent. Schools 

 organized on any other than a four-year basis can, 

 nevertheless, estimate their work in terms of this 

 unit. 



The sub-committee was requested to con- 

 tinue its consideration of various subjects al- 

 ready before it and to report again at the 

 next meeting. It is hoped in particular that 

 it will present at that time recommendations 

 as to some accurate use of the terms " progress 

 of study," " curriculum," " course of study," 

 " hour," " count," " point," " exercise," etc. 



The committee passed a resolution express- 

 ing its approval of the tendency shown by 

 many colleges to make their definitions of ad- 

 mission requirements conform to those of the 

 College Entrance Examination Board, and 



its hope that the definitions of admission re- 

 (luirements published by that board come into 

 universal use. 



It was voted to invite the Association of 

 American Universities to accept membership 

 in the committee and to send a delegate to its 

 meetings. 



The full minutes of the proceedings of the 

 conference will be printed and distributed to 

 the members of the associations wiiifli are 

 represented in the committee. 



Frederick C. Fkrrv, 

 Secretary-Treasurer 



THE yEW EXGLAXD GEOLOaiCAL 

 EXCURSlOy 



The ninth annual intercollegiate geological 

 excursion of New England was held in the 

 northern Berkshires, Massachusetts, on Satur- 

 day, October 9, 1909, under the leadership of 

 Professor H. F. Cleland, of Williams College. 

 Representatives from Bates, Brown, Dart- 

 mouth, Harvard, Mt. Holyoke, Smith, Tufts, 

 Wellesley, Wesleyan, Williams and Yale Col- 

 leges, the normal schools at Boston, North 

 Adams, Salem and Worcester and other insti- 

 tutions, a total of 44, gathered for a prelimin- 

 ary discussion in Hotel Wendell, Pittsfield, on 

 Friday evening. At this meeting papers were 

 rea'd on the glacial geology of the region to be 

 traversed by Professor Cleland, on the areal 

 geology by Professors Barrell and T. Nelson 

 Dale, and on the anthropogeography by Pro- 

 fessor Davis. 



The party left Pittsfield at eight o'clock, 

 Saturday morning, on a special electric car 

 and made its first stop at the outlet of Glacial 

 Lake Bascom. Here Professor Cleland ex- 

 plained the conditions attending the formation 

 and the various halts of this former lake, and 

 Professor Davis discussed the esker which 

 traversed the valley. A second stop was made 

 at the glass sand quarries and mill at Cheshire 

 where Professor Emerson spoke of the origin 

 of the sand and furnished the party with an 

 explanation of its physical characters. Mr. C. 

 Q. Richmond, superintendent of the Berkshire 

 Street Railway, gave an interesting descrip- 

 tion of the industries of the Hoosic valley. 



