May 6, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



637 



(Ithaca, N. Y.), Professor Geo. F. Atkinson 

 oflTers five courses in botany during the summer 

 of 1898 (Six weeks, from July 5th- August 13th). 

 Three of these courses are especially designed 

 to meet the wants of teachers in the high 

 schools, and one course is to satisfy a growing 

 desire for information concerning mycology. 



The Faculty of the University of Nebraska, 

 afi.er long consideration, have recommended 

 the establishment of three ' general ' groups or 

 courses, viz., classical, literary and scientific, 

 for the large class of students who desire gen- 

 eral culture rather than specialization along any 

 particular line. In these general groups fully 

 three-fourths of the subjects are prescribed. In 

 every case the aim has been to give the student 

 an introduction to several of the principal lines 

 of modern intellectual activity, without taking 

 him into those phases of each subject which 

 belong to the specialist. For the specialists in 

 language, literature, history, economics and 

 science the groups or courses hitherto existing 

 will be still more extended to meet a growing 

 demand. 



The University of Nebraska is erecting the 

 north wing of its new Engineering Hall, to 

 supply additional rooms for the work in electri- 

 cal and mechanical engineering. Externally 

 the walls are to be faced with chipped bricks, 

 while all the interior surface is to be of smooth 

 brick finish. This wing will provide about 

 21,000 square feet of floor space, which is a 

 little less than one-half of the whole building. 



At a recent meeting of the Regents of the 

 University of Nebraska the office of ' Dean of 

 Women ' was created, and Mrs. H. H. Wilson, 

 of the class of 1880, was elected to the new 

 ofiice. She will assume her new duties at the 

 opening of the next collegiate year. At 

 the same meeting the Regents took action 

 looking to the development of a department 

 of domestic economy, and Miss Rosa Bouton, 

 M.A , of the class of 1891, was elected to 

 take charge of the work. Miss Bouton has 

 been for six years an instructor in chemistry 

 in the University and has already made con- 

 siderable progress in the development of work 

 in domestic chemistry. 



Professor James Sheldon, of the Univer- 



sity of Wisconsin, has been elected professor of 

 electrical engineering in Lafayette College. 



De. James H. Leuba, who was elected a 

 year ago associate in psychology and pedagogy 

 at Bryn Mawr College, will begin his courses 

 next year. The fifth floor of Dalton Hall is 

 being adapted to the requirements of a psycho- 

 logical laboratory, and the necessary apparatus 

 is being procured. 



William B. Hampson, B.M.E., instructor in 

 graphics and machine design in the Univer- 

 sity of Nebraska from 1893 to 1897, has been 

 appointed mechanical engineer for the Oregon 

 lines of the Southern Pacific Railway, with 

 headquarters at Portland, Oregon. Frederic 

 E. Clements, instructor in botany in the same 

 University, has declined an election to the- 

 chair of plant pathology in the Maryland Agri- 

 cultural College. 



Dr. F. Noll, of Bonn, has been appointed' 

 professor of botany and director of botanical 

 instruction at the Agricultural Academy at 

 Poppelsdorf, in the place of Professor Fried- 

 rich Kornicke, who has resigned. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 

 isolation and selection. 



To the Editor op Science : Mr. Hutton's 

 letter in the last number of Science on ' Isola- 

 tion and Selection ' gives occasion to speak of a 

 common misconception regarding the nature of 

 evolution. So long as we proceed on the funda- 

 mental assumption that an organism, left to 

 itself, will continue indefinitely to reproduce its 

 like, neither Isolation nor Selection can be of 

 any service in evolving characters unlike those 

 of its ancestors. If heredity, the principle of 

 breeding true, be assumed to be the funda- 

 mental principle controlling the generation and 

 development of organic bodies, then the most 

 favorable conditions of existence will be those 

 least interfering with the operation of this prin- 

 ciple, and the fittest race, or line of generating 

 individuals, will be that one which reproduces 

 its kind with greatest precision. 



The very fact that isolation, or change of en- 

 vironmental conditions, results in increased de- 



