530 
managers of factories? But little, it must 
be confessed, though this may be from a 
failure of the industry to let its wants be 
known. Such subjects as ‘‘Arsenic in 
Filter Alum,’’ ‘‘The Chemistry of Liquid 
Manure,’’ ‘‘The Fertilizer Value of Acti- 
vated Sludge,’’ ‘‘The Effect of Gas-house 
Waste upon the Organic Matter in 
Streams’’ are recent general Sigma Xi 
studies in my own field. But special prob- 
lems for particular manufacturers do not 
seem to'reach the universities. Our eager 
workers do not seem to know of them and 
the practise seems to be growing of send- 
ing to the universities where laboratories 
and advice may be had agents of the indus- 
tries, industrial Fellows, as they are called, 
to do work for special interests. Even the 
employees of the United States govern- 
ment come to the colleges and work on prob- 
lems that the government needs to have 
solved. ; 
The present war has brought to a crisis 
the failure of this country to provide for 
the manufacture of optical glass. Our navy 
has been begging from patriotic citizens 
their field glasses so that the ships of the 
navy shall not go blindly directed. Eng- 
land has felt the same lack and is meeting 
the urgency of the problem of manufacture 
by a special committee of scientists to whom 
has been referred such questions as ‘‘ What 
are the desirable raw materials for optical 
glass?’’ ‘“What are the optical properties 
of all the different kinds of glass?’’ ‘‘How 
should glass be tested for its optical prop- 
erties?’’ ‘‘How should the surfaces of 
lenses be designed?’’ Why should not 
Sigma Xi workers give their attention to 
such practical problems? 
In one of this year’s Atlantics, is an 
article by Professor Ames, director of the 
Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins, de- 
seribing in the most graphical way the ap- 
plications of science to the carrying on of 
SCIENCE 
[N. S. Vou. XLVITI. No. 1248 
the war, as he himself saw it at the front. 
He confidently predicts the suecess of the 
Allies because, he says, at first the Germans 
profited by the advice of their scientists but 
now these have all been replaced by regular 
army officers, while, on the contrary, more 
and more have the operations of the Allies 
been guided by scientific advice. Professor 
Ames shows how geology, meteorology, 
physics and chemistry, each with many 
branches, are doing yeomen service and 
making success certain through the marked 
superiority of the Allies in the very kind 
of work that Sigma Xi exists to foster. 
And finally there are problems of educa- 
tion to be treated with a scientific spirit. 
For educators are getting restless under the 
spur of constant criticism of methods and of 
results. So much is being said of the fail- 
ure of universities to turn out men and 
women whose minds are really trained, who 
have more than a smattering of ideas in 
their heads, that faculties are asking them- 
selves whether they are really alive to their 
responsibilities, and whether the time-worn 
theories of education may not need revis- 
ion, in view of changed industrial and so- 
cial conditions. Ex-president Eliot is a 
champion of revised teaching in the seec- 
ondary schools, on 'the ground that present 
urban conditions do not train children to 
see and to hear accurately and that the 
present methods generally contain no sig- 
nificant element of sense training. He 
would cultivate mental vigor by association 
with bodily work and increase the power 
of mental concentration by work in carpen- 
try and farming. Abraham Flexner goes 
farther and would eliminate all the old 
curriculum and build anew on the four 
foundation stones of science, industry, es- 
theties and civics, developing each from the 
child’s senses and from laboratory train- 
ing. 
Perhaps a larger conception is found in 
