424 



SOTENOE. 



[N. S. Vol. VII. No. 169. 



library during the last five years has been over 

 19,000 volumes. 



The Teachers' College, Columbia University, 

 has received from an anonymous donor a gift 

 of $40,000. Three [other gifts of $25,000 each 

 have been received since December 1st. 



The Missouri Supreme Court, in an opinion 

 by Justice Gante, on March 16th, declared the 

 Missouri State University Free Scholarship Law 

 unconstitutional. This law provided for the 

 collection of a special tax on corporations and 

 on patent medicine and a collateral tax of inher- 

 itance to establish free scholarships in the State 

 University. 



Convocation week at the University of Chi- 

 cago begins on Friday, April 1st. The Presi- 

 dent will make the 'quarterly report and the 

 convocation address will be given by Professor 

 William Knight, of St. Andrews University, his 

 subject being 'Poetry and Science: Their Af- 

 finities and Contrasts.' 



Dr. Charles R. Barnes, of the University 

 of Wisconsin, has been appointed professor of 

 plant physiology in the University of Chicago. 



Professor Gates, of Amherst College, has 

 been given a year's leave of absence by the 

 Trustees. 



A Berlin despatch states that a decree has 

 been issued by the government forbidding the 

 future attendance of foreigners in the machinery 

 and engineering department of the Berlin 

 Technical High School. 



A University Extension meeting will be 

 held in London from May 30th to June 11th. 

 The program, which should be of interest to 

 Americans visiting London, includes lectures by 

 Sir John Evans, on ' London before the Saxons ; 

 by Professor Skeat, on 'Chaucer's London'; 

 and by Mr. Gollancz, on ' Shakespeare and the 

 London Theatre.' Mr. Owen Seamen will give 

 three lectures on 'The London Poets,' Mr. 

 Mackinder two on ' The Geography of London,' 

 and Mr. Arnold Mitchell three on ' London Ar- 

 chitecture,' followed by a demonstration in the 

 Church of St. Bartholomew, Smithfield. In 

 the Education Section, Sir Joshua Fitch will 

 deal with ' The National Portrait Gallery and 

 its Educational Uses,' Professor Miall with 



' The Curiosity of Children,' and Mr. Marriott 

 with 'John Colet, the Founder of St. Paul's 

 School.' A course of three lectures entitled 

 ' Studies on Children' will be delivered by Mr. 

 Earl Barnes, late professor of pedagogy in the 

 Leland Stanford Junior University. 



Mk. Henry Hanna, M.A., B.Sc, has been 

 appointed demonstrator of biology, geology, 

 and paleontology in the Eoyal College of Sci- 

 ence, Dublin. 



Me. J. G. Kerr, a student of zoology, has 

 been elected a fellow in Christ's College, Cam- 

 bridge. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



THE TERMINOLOGY OP THE NEUROCYTE OR 



nerve CELL. 



The writer is far from being one that re- 

 gards the introduction of new terms, even 

 where they seem to shorten a phrase or so, as 

 necessarily an advance in science. But it seems 

 as though some improvements might be made in 

 the terminology of the neurocyte, not only in the 

 use of terms already suggested and more or less 

 employed, but also by suggesting at least two 

 more. The varying senses in which some terms 

 in use are employed and the different terms ap- 

 plied to the same thing are very confusing. 

 Uni-, bi- and multi-polar cells one finds, for in- 

 stance, according to the author read mean cells 

 with one, two or more processes irrespective of 

 whether they are recipient or discharging pro- 

 cesses as regards the neural impulses that 

 traverse them, or one finds that they mean 

 cells with one, two or more discharging pro- 

 cesses, axis cylinders or neurites irrespective of 

 there being other processes. One finds the 

 entire nerve cell spoken of as the nerve cell, 

 neuron and as neurocyte ; while that process, 

 the main function of which appears to 

 be that of bearing the neural impulse . away 

 from the cell body, or cell, when this is not to 

 one side of the most direct course of the neural 

 impulse, as is the case in the cells of the mam- 

 malian spinal ganglia and in all cases among 

 the arthropods, is called the axiscylinder, axon, 

 neuron and neurite. The other processes have 

 been known as the protoplasmic processes or 

 the dendrites. 



