54 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. I., No. 2. 



Man, 

 Age of the mother, and sex of the child. — 



According to Schramm and Bidder, it appears that 

 we may consider twenty to be tlie age of the most 

 perfect female maturity; that it is at that age that 

 women bear the largest proportion of girls ; that, the 

 farther they pass beyond that age, the more the pro- 

 portion of the male to the female children increases. 

 Rumpe deals with this question, especially as regards 

 X)rimiparae. He divides his cases into those where 

 the mother was under thirty (yomig), and those over 

 (old). For the old primiparae, Eumpe had 63 boys 

 against 52 girls, or 121 : 100. 



Other authors have found as follows, for old primi- 

 parae:— 3oys. (jiris. 



Schramm 132 100 



Ahlfeld 137 100 



Hecker 133 100 



Kruger and Winckel .... 133 100 



The mean proportion of all births, independent 

 of the mother's condition, is 106 bojs to 100 girls. If 

 this increase in the relative number of boys depends 

 on the age of the mother, then it must be the case 

 also with multiparae. Kumpe cites 400 cases to show 

 that it is so : 200 multiparae under thirty gave birth 

 to 96 boys and 104 girls; i.e., 92 : 100; 200 multiparae 

 over thirty gave birth to 110 boys and 90 girls; i.e., 

 122 : 100. The conclusion is therefore confirmed, 

 that, the older the mothers, the larger the proportion 

 of boys hovn. ^( Arch. f. gynoek., sx., 1882, 129.) 

 c. s. M. [166 



Asymmetry of the turbinated bones in man. — 

 According to Dr. H. Allen, this may exist independ- 

 ently of or involving the nasal septum, and is proba- 

 bly due to pre-natal influences. — (Proc. acad. nat. 

 sc. PAitacL, 1882, 239.) r. w. t. [167 



PEDAGOGY. 

 The use of slates. — Prof. H. Cohn of Breslau 

 believes that the use of slates by school-children 

 tends to produce short-sightedness; and would sub- 

 stitute either pen and ink, or an artificial white slate 

 with black pencil manufactured in Pilsen, and already 

 introduced into a few German schools. In 1878 Hor- 

 ner found {Vierteljahrschrift offentl. gesundheits- 

 pflege, x. 4), that B and E could be read, if black on 

 white groimd, 496 cm.; if white on black, 421 cm.; 

 and if gray on black, 330 cm. ; and ascribed the 

 greater difficulty with white letters to irradiation. 

 The reflection of light from the surface of slates is, 

 it is said, enough alone to cause their disuse. The 

 school-board of Ziirich has forbidden the use of the 

 slate after the first term (primary year), and many 

 teachers and oculists advocate the substitution of 

 white-boards for black-boards. The noise of slates ; 

 dirty habits formed by erasures ; bad positions favored 

 by reading the less legible script; a heavy hand; and 

 the habit of twisting learned with a pencil, and to be 



unlearned with a pen, — these, it is said, are obviated 

 by the use of pen and ink at the outset. The obvi- 

 ous objections are, that children can occupy them- 

 selves better with slates, and from pencil to pen is 

 from the easier to the harder. — G. s. H. [168 



Curriculum in Prussian gymnasia. — The most 

 important changes in the recent revision of the 

 study-plans of the Prussian gymnasia, which had 

 remained essentially unaltered between 1856 and 

 1882, are as follows : 1. One hour per week less of 

 Latin during the first five, and two less during the 

 secunda years. Greek begins one year later, but for 

 four years gains an hour per week. Writing and re- 

 ligion receive also less time. 2. What is thus gained 

 is divided nearly equally between French, history 

 and geography, mathematics, j)hysics and natural 

 science, and drawing. Save in the reduction of Latin, 

 the change is slight, but significant, and much dis- 

 cussed, as a departure towards the plan of the real- 

 school. — G. s. H. [169 



School savings-banks. — The advisability of 

 school savings-banks elicits much discussion in Ger- 

 many. On the one haiid, it is claimed that pupils 

 may be taught self-denial, foresight, interest in great 

 mercantile and other oi^erations remote from their 

 own narrow lives; encouraged in bookkeeping; saved 

 from the noxious effects of bad confectionery; if 

 poor, encouraged in helping their parents; and ide- 

 ality and healthful moral sentiments cultivated by 

 directing their plans for future use of their money 

 to beneficent objects. On the other hand, the oppo- 

 nents of school-banks urge, that they encourage a 

 commercial view of life prematurely; that, as school- 

 children seldom earn money, they will be stimulated 

 to tease or steal it from their parents or others, when, 

 to be properly possessed, money should be earned; 

 and that this is not the most pedagogic method of 

 instruction. The plan has perhaps been most fully 

 tried in Ghent, where, out of 15,392 scholars in the 

 lower schools, 13,032 have accounts in the school 

 savings-banks of the place; the average for each 

 depositor being about 35 francs (seven dollars). — 



G. S. H. [170 



Herbart's ■works. — The first volume of a new 

 edition of Herbart's works, just published, by Veit & 

 Co., contains his pedagogical writings. As Herbart 

 was the first to attempt to give a scientific character 

 to pedagogy, and a more or less philosophical one 

 to Pestalozzi's incoherent insights, his historic sig- 

 nificance is great ; although advance has been made 

 beyond his position by his followers in pedagogy 

 (Beneke, Diesterweg), as well as by his philosophical 

 disciples. A number of critiques and other interest- 

 ing inedita, the existence of which seems to have 

 been unknown to the compilers of the former Har- 

 tenstein edition, add considerably to the value of the 

 new edition. — g. s. h. [171 



INTELLiaENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. 



GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. 

 National museum. 

 The fisheries exhibition. — Mr. T. W. Smillie, pho- 

 tographer of the museum, is preparing a series of 

 photographs to accompany the fisheries exhibit, which 

 will be sent to London in the spring. The views, 

 many of which are those of fishing-vessels and boats 

 in motion, were taken by an instantaneous process. 



The positives, which measure 30 X 40 inches, and are, 

 perhaps, the largest photographs ever taken for dis- 

 play without crayoning, are obtained by aid of the 

 electric light. The rays from a Brush lamp are passed 

 through an achromatic condenser 13-J inches in diam- 

 eter, tlience through a negative and through a large 

 portrait-lens; they are then thrown upon a screen 

 placed at a distance of 7 or 8 feet from the camera. 

 A sensitized sheet of paper, of dimensions a little 



