staffed and equipped at the Government 
expense, is confined practically to science 
teachers, drawn by scholarships from all 
parts of the country, and to the mining and 
metallurgical students of what was formerly 
the Royal School of Mines. The science 
schools at University and King’s Colleges, 
directed by able professors, are severely 
handicapped by inadequate accommodation 
and limited funds, whilst the high fees 
necessitated by the absence of endowment 
exclude all but a small number of students. 
The total number of undergraduate science 
students in these five schools may be esti- 
mated at six or seven hundred. Cheaper 
science-teaching at more convenient centers, 
open in the evening as well as in the day- 
time, is supplied not only at the admirably 
organized Finsbury Technical College of the 
City and Guilds Institute, but also by the 
dozen so-called ‘ polytechnics.’ These lat- 
ter have been greatly improved during the 
last few years. By the aid of large grants 
from the London County Council, their lab- 
oratories and scientific equipment have 
been brought up to a high university stand- 
ard, whilst the professional staff has been 
strengthened by the appointment of men 
of excellent scientific attainments. A large 
proportion of London candidates for science 
degrees are now trained in the polytechnic 
laboratories, which may probably include, 
in the aggregate, between two and three 
hundred science students above matricula- 
tion standard. The total number of science 
students of undergraduate status in the 
whole six million of people apparently does 
not reach one thousand. Additional cen- 
ters of science instruction for undergradu- 
ates are required in north west London, 
Hackney and Hammersmith, whilst in the 
outer suburbs the existing institutions at 
Croydon, Tottenham and West Ham need 
developing up to university standard. With 
additional professors and enlarged labora- 
tories at these twenty-five science centers, 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Vou. XIII. No. 339. 
all parts of London would be fairly well 
served, so far as science instruction up to 
the B.Sc. degree is concerned ; and the num- 
ber of undergraduate students in the faculty 
might reasonably be expected to rise to at 
least 2,000. 
But the most serious deficiency in the 
London faculty of science is not the inad- 
equacy of the instruction for the science 
degree, but the lack of anything like ad- 
equate provision for chemical, physical and 
biological technology, or the application of 
science to industrial processes. The munifi- 
cence of Mr. Ludwig Mond has provided a 
well-equipped laboratory at the Royal In- 
stitution, in which a few highly qualified 
scientists find the opportunity for pursuing 
special researches. But of public provi- 
sion for instruction in scientific technology 
there is practically none. The same na- 
tional neglect which lost us the great in- 
dustry of coal-tar products—positively a 
British discovery that we failed to utilize 
and abandoned to Germany—now bids fair 
to lose us one branch of applied chemistry 
after another. At the present moment per- 
haps the most promising outlook in the 
scientific field is presented by electro:chem- 
istry, including both electrolysis and the 
multifarious operations of the electric fur- 
nace. This new science has already trans- 
formed the commercial production of copper 
and aluminum, and given us such new 
products as carbide of calcium (for the eco- 
nomical production of acetylene) and car- 
borundum. It bids fair, moreover, to rev- 
olutionize the whole alkali industry. Yet 
beyond certain small experiments, due to 
personal initiative of two or three profess- 
ors, London offers no means and no oppor- 
tunities for instruction and research in the 
subject. If electro-chemistry is destined 
to transform the world’s industry, it is to 
Germany, and not to England, that the ad- 
vantage of the first start seems at present 
likely to accrue. There is no more press- 
