SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 781 



The University of St. Andrews will cele- 

 brate its five hundredth anniversary in Sep- 

 tember, 1911. 



An exchange of professorships and students 

 between universities and academies among all 

 the American republics has been proposed by 

 Secretary Knox. The suggestion has com- 

 mended itself to the governing board of the 

 International Bureau of American Republics, 

 which has recommended that the proposed 

 interchange shall figure in the program of 

 the fourth Pan-American Congress to be 

 held at Buenos Ayres next summer. 



Mr. Walter George Smith, a Philadelphia 

 lawyer, has resigned as a trustee of the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania owing to the election 

 of Dr. L. P. Lichtenberger as associate pro- 

 fessor. He objected to Dr. Lichtenberger's 

 views on divorce expressed by him at a meet- 

 ing of the American Sociological Society in 

 Atlantic City last year. 



A NEW department of economic entomology 

 has been organized in the College of Agricul- 

 ture of the University of Wisconsin, and Mr. 

 J. G. Sanders, of the U. S. Bureau of Ento- 

 mology, has been appointed assistant pro- 

 fessor in charge. 



Professor H. G. Bell, of the Iowa State 

 College, has been appointed professor of agron- 

 omy at the University of Maine. 



Mr. Donald F. MacDonald, junior geologist, 

 U. S. Geological Survey, is this winter in 

 charge of the work in geology at Tulane Uni- 

 versity, New Orleans. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 

 national leadership in education 



The recent communications to Science of 

 Mr. E. C. Moore and Mr. Theo. B. Comstock 

 open a field that can not fail to be of interest 

 to specialists in education, and of great im- 

 portance to the country generally. 



It is a good suggestion that the significance 

 of the nation's work in education would be 

 more adequately indicated by having a secre- 

 tary of education than it ever could be by the 

 office of commissioner of a bureau. If it 

 should become a question of room in the Presi- 

 dent's cabinet, it might be entirely feasible to 



combine the functions of the Departments of 

 War and Navy, or gradually to do away with 

 them altogether. This would be especially ap- 

 propriate, and in the line of just recognition, 

 since no factor in our national life bids fair 

 to do more to render these departments useless 

 than education itself. 



In our system of state independence as 

 opposed to national unity, it is very difficult 

 to say what could be done were the nation to 

 assume definite control of general education. 

 The already established departments of the 

 executive branch of the national government 

 vary in the degree of control of the field as- 

 signed to them. The existence of absolute 

 control of the Postmaster General and the 

 divided control of the Attorney General may 

 be explained on the basis of the fact that one 

 has organized a system for every one's con- 

 venience at small cost, while the other may 

 threaten to encroach on certain " inalienable 

 rights." The degree of control in either and 

 all cases would also vary with the confidence 

 inspired by the acts of the department. The 

 mind of the nation shows signs of moving 

 strongly to those factors in its life which are 

 obviously affecting the general welfare. Here 

 would lie the great hope of a Department of 

 Education. 



There are certain phases of the possible 

 work of a Department of Education that seem 

 to the writer to be of paramount importance. 

 The west, the east, the north and the south 

 have developed antagonisms through isolation 

 and through variety of locality interests. In 

 all these regions magnificent work in con- 

 structive ideas in the field of education is 

 being done in spots. But except for the evan- 

 escent results of educational conferences and 

 the poorly circulated printed page, there is 

 nothing to help a great idea to stick. If in 

 the state of New York an educational leader 

 formulates the idea that the schools and col- 

 leges should train their students to be intel- 

 lectually honest, there should be some central 

 authority to recognize the far-reaching appli- 

 cation that idea might have in curing us of 

 the habit of indirection in ofBcial and business 

 dealings, and in removing sectional prejudice. 



