134 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LI. No. 1310 



prison medical officer. His one monumental 

 work, whicli may perhaps best be described as 

 the hiology of the convict, is still unfamiliar 

 to all but a limited circle. 



Goring's work^ was based on thousands of 

 data and is stringently biometric in form, but 

 he was no mere measurer, card shuffler and 

 constant computer. He knew his convicts as 

 the trained student of animal behavior knows 

 his organisms — and better, for he had not 

 merely their physical measurements and an 

 intimate personal knowledge and evaluation 

 of their mental characteristics but knew much 

 of their ancestry and family associations. To 

 Goring, measurements were inviolate — not to 

 be juggled with, modified or discarded because 

 they did not substantiate a popular theory. 

 Better proof of this could not be found than 

 the fact that the raw data for his book were 

 set up before the calculations were well under 

 way. Goring as a thoroughgoing biometri- 

 cian believed that in many fields of research 

 valid conclusions must rest upon the mathe- 

 matical analysis of large masses of data. But 

 in his research each constant was critically 

 weighed against his own broad and intimate 

 personal experience of the individual in- 

 stances which constitute the mass. 



1 find it difficult to decide just what char- 

 acteristic of Goring impressed me most when 

 we were working together at the Biometric 

 Laboratory ten years ago. Sometimes it was 

 the steadfast scientific piirpose which had sup- 

 ported the years of painstaking detail upon 

 which his great book rests — detail scrupulously 

 executed notwithstanding the fact that there 

 was at times little prospect of its ever serving 

 as a basis for constants and generalizations. 

 Sometimes it was the breadth of interests, 

 knowledge and sympathies of one whose work 



Prison, Manchester. Those wbo desire may find a 

 portrait and a more adequate appreciation in Bio- 

 metrilca, Vol. XII., pp. 297-307, pi. 1, 1919. 



2 Goring, C. B., "The English Convict; A Sta- 

 tistical Study." 444 pp. London, 1913. Abridged 

 edition, Wyman and Co., 1915. The statistical 

 work on this volume was carried out alt the Bio- 

 metric Laboratory with the cooperation of H. E. 

 Soper and with the helpful suggestion and criti- 

 oism of Professor Pearson. 



lay in a field seemingly so circumscribed. 

 Sometimes it was the entire freedom from 

 both callousness and sentimentality of a man 

 who had spent a decade, more or less, with 

 the inmates of the British prisons. 



One sentence tells much of the man. One 

 day I asked, "Why is this to be The English 

 Convict instead of The English Criminal f" 

 He replied instantly, " Perhaps some of them 

 are not criminals, only convicts." 



J. Arthur Harris 



SCIENTIFIC EVENTS 



THE DEPARTMENT OF SCIENTIFIC AND INDUS- 

 TRIAL RESEARCH OF GREAT BRITAIN 



The following is a list of research associa- 

 tions which have been approved by the depart- 

 ment as complying with the conditions laid 

 down in the government scheme for the encour- 

 agement of indiistrial research and have re- 

 ceived licenses from the Board of Trade under 

 Section 20 of the Companies' (Consolidated) 

 Act of 1908 : 



British Boot, Shoe and AUied Trades Research As- 

 sooiatiom, 

 Technical School, Abington Square, North- 

 ampton. 

 Secretary — ^Mr. John Blakeman, M.A., M.Sc. 

 British Cotton Industry Research Association, 

 108, Deansgate, Manchester. 

 Secretary — Miss B. Thomas. 

 British Empire Sugar Research Association, 



Evelyn House, 62, Oxford Street, London, W.l. 

 Secretary — Mr. "W. H. Giffard. 

 British Iron Manufacturers Research Association, 

 Atlantic Chambers, Brazennose Street, Man- 

 chester. 

 Secretary — Mr. H. S. Knowles. 

 British Motor and Allied Manufacturers Research 

 Association, 

 39, St. James's Street, London, S.W.I. 

 Secretary — Mr. Horace Wyatt. 

 British Photographic Research Association, 



Sicilian House, Southampton Row, London, 



W.C.I. 

 Secretary — Mr. Arthur C. Brookes. 

 British Portland Cement Research Association, 

 6, Lloyd's Avenue, London, E.C.3. 

 Secretary— M.X. S. G. S. Panisset, A.C.G.I., 

 F.C.S. 



