February 20, 1891.] 



SCIENCE. 



107 



(3) Especial stress is laid on the fact that home tasks are not to 

 be increased ; that the bulk of the work should be performed in 

 school ; and that, with this object in view, an alteration in the 

 present method of teaching is absolutely necessary. 



(4) For the teacher, more thorough pedagogic education and a 

 higher social status are insisted on. 



(5) Teachers should not be specialists, but form masters, and 

 should realize their responsibility for the physical as well as the 

 intellectual development of their pupils. Greater attention should 

 be paid to the health of the boys, and to the demands of hygiene 

 in the schools. 



(6) The final school examination (which serves as entrance ex- 

 amination to the university) should be regarded as the "remove " 

 examination out of the oberprima, and consequently should be 

 restricted to work done in this class. The Latin essay is hence- 

 forth to be abolished, and the examination in other respects made 

 considerably easier. 



In order to meet the probable growing demand for hohere 

 biii-gerschuleu and realschulen, the conference passed a number 

 of resolutions the most important of which were that gymnasia 

 or realgymnasia, where only a small proportion of the pupils pass 

 into tbe upper classes, should he turned into realschulen ; that in 

 towns where there are several gymnasia or realgymnasia, if 

 possible, one of these should be turned into a realschule. la the 

 establishment of new schools, preference is to be given to real- 

 schulen, but at the same time the interests of the minority of the 

 inhabitants of small I owns without gymnasia are to be considered 

 by having Latin instruction given where desired in the three 

 lowest classes, so that pupils who are intended for a gymnasium 

 may be prepared for it without leaving their homes at too early 

 an age. 



The salaries of the teachers in the realschulen are to be on the 

 same scale as those in the gymnasia. 



It is thought likely that the demand for realschulen will in- 

 crease, now that a leaving-certificate from a realschule qualifies 

 for all the lower government posts, and for the one year's military 

 service. There is to be a special examination for this privilege in 

 the gymnasia at the end of the year in the unter seounda. 



Another reform is the putting of gymnasia and realschulen on 

 an equal footing with regard to the right of study for all degrees 

 in the university and technical high schools (these are of the 

 nature of technico scientific universities). The only condition for 

 realschule students is tbe completion of their leaving-certificate by 

 certificates of their proficiency in classics, while gymnasium stu- 

 dents must obtain certificates of proficiency in drawing and mathe- 

 matics. Moreover, the school authorities have the right to excuse 

 good pupils from the gymnasium or realschule this supplemen- 

 tary examination; also every candidate who has passed the final 

 examination of a nine-class high-school shall be admitted to all 

 state examinations, if, during his term of study, he passes the 

 necessary special examination wliich he has omitted during his 

 school career. It is these reforms which are really the most im- 

 portant, for they make it possible to carry out the proposed changes 

 without injuring the interests of many classes. 



The committee for the carrying-out of the reforms resolved upon 

 in the conference held its first meeting in Berlin on Jan. 6. The 

 committee consists of Geheimrath Hinzpeter as chairman ; Ur. 

 Schrador, curator of the Halle University, as vice-chairman ; Dr. 

 Fiedler of Breslau; Dr. Graf of Elberfeld; Dr KJropatseheck of 

 Berlin; Dr. Schlee, director of the Realgymnasium of Altona; and 

 Dr. Ulilhorn of Hannover. The members of the Council for Educa- 

 tion are not on the reform committee, but several of them are ap- 

 pointed to draw up the report. The committee agreed as to the 

 reforms necessary for raising the social standing of the teacher, 

 and on the conditions for the right to one year's military service. 

 The next general meeting is to be held in February, and mean- 

 while the work of reform is to be furthered by private consulta- 

 tions. 



Reforms have already been initiated in Wiirtemburg gymnasia. 

 They are divided into ten classes, of which Class I. is the lowest. 

 The chief alteration is that Latin is to be begun in Class II. in- 

 stead of Class I., in which the average age is eight. In the low- 

 est class the time is to be spent in mastering reading, writing, and 



the elements of arithmetic; also Greek is to he begun in the fifth' 

 instead of the fourth, the average age of which is eleven. Then 

 the time devoted to classics is to be curtailed in all classes, so that 

 from the second to the sixth not more than ten hours, from the 

 seventh to the tenth not more than eight hours, are given to 

 classics in the week. This means a reduction from 103 hours to 

 83 hours in all the classes reckoned together. The number of 

 school-hours is not to be diminished, but the time saved is to be 

 given to other subjects. German is to have 28 hours as against 

 26, French 18 instead of 16, mathematics 39 instead of 37, physi- 

 ography 16 instead of 10, and obligatory drawing in Classes IV. 

 to VI. 7 hours, whereas before no time was devoted to this sub- 

 ject. 



The chief feature of the reform programme is the emphasis laid 

 on making grammar the handmaid of literature, on mastering 

 tbe text, and gaining a knowledge of grammar by study of it 

 rather than making grammar an aim in itself. The official pub- 

 lications point out the fact that these alterations are compara- 

 tively insignificant, and that the Wiirtemberg educational author- 

 ities consider the time not yet ripe for extensive reforms, more 

 especially as the resolutions passed by the Berlin School Confer- 

 ence really tend to make the gymnasia of Prussia more nearly 

 resemble those of Wiirtemburg. For instance : the gymnasium 

 in Wiiitemberg has no Latin essay, and the division of secondary 

 schools into gymnasia and nou-classical realschulen is already 

 carried out. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



*^* Correspondents are I'equested to be as brief as possible. The writer's name 

 is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 



The editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant with the character 

 of the journal. 



On request, twenty copies of the number containing his communication will 

 be furnished free to any correspondent. 



JDiscovery of Fish-Remains in Lovyer Silurian Rocks. 



At a meeting of the Biological Society of Washington on Feb. 

 7, 1891, Mr. Charles D. Walcott of the United States Geological 

 Survey announced the discovery of vertebrate life in the Lower 

 SUurian (Ordovician) strata. He stated that " the remains were 

 found in a sandstone resting on the pre-paleozoic rocks of the 

 eastern front of the Rocky Mountains, near Caiion City, Col. 

 They consist of an immense number of separate plates of placo- 

 ganoid tishes and many fragments of the calcified covering of the 

 notochord, of a form provisionally referred to the Elasmobranchii. 

 The accompanying invertebrate fauna has the facies of the 

 Trenton fauna of New York and the Mississippi valley. It ex- 

 tends upward into the superjacent limestone and at an horizon 

 180 feet above the fish-beds. Seventeen out of thirty three species 

 that have been distinguished are identical with species occurring 

 in the Trenton limestone of Wisconsin and New York. 



" Great interest centres about this discovery from the fact that 

 we now have some of the ancestors of the great group of placoderm 

 fishes which appear so suddenly at the close of the Upper Silurian 

 and in the lower portion of the Devonian groups. It also carries 

 the vertebrate fauna far back into the Silurian, and indicates that 

 the differentiation between the invertebrate and vertebrate types 

 probably occurred in Cambrian time." 



Mr. Walcott is preparing a full description of the stratigraphic 

 section, mode of occurrence, and character of the invertebrate and 

 vertebrate faunas, for presentation at the meeting of the Geological 

 Society of America in August, 1891. L. A. 



Washington, Feb. 10. 



Was Lake Iroquois an Arm of the Sea ? 



In Science recently Professor Davis stated several reasons lead- 

 ing to the belief that the Iroquois beach was formed by a lake 

 instead of being formed by the sea, as held by Professor Spencer. 

 It is possible that both theories are partly right, and that there 

 was once a lake overflowing the divide at Rome, while later the 

 basin of Lake Ontario or its eastern portion was occupied by the 

 sea. It is not my present purpose to enter into a general discus- 

 sion of the question, but to call attention to a class of deposits 



