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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 844 



A. Francis has been elected the first Went- 

 worth professor of mathematics. He has been 

 professor of mathematics since 1892. 



The Ohio house has passed the Cahill bill, 

 which had previously passed the senate, pro- 

 viding for the compulsory teaching of agricul- 

 ture in the common schools of villages and 

 townships. 



On February 15 and 16, about one hundred 

 and sixty members of the Illinois general 

 assembly went to the University of Illinois to 

 make their biennial inspection. A convoca- 

 tion was held in the auditorium, at which time 

 addresses were given by various members of 

 the house and senate. In the afternoon a 

 conference with members of the appropriation 

 committee and heads of the departments was 

 held, at which time the needs of the university 

 were presented. The university is requesting 

 from the legislature this year for maintenance 

 and general equipment $2,201,000; also for 

 new buildings, the sum of $1,150,000; for 

 maintenance of the College of Medicine, $200,- 

 000. In addition to these requests it also is 

 supporting the request of the College of Agri- 

 culture for $1,575,750 for maintenance and 

 equipment. In addition to the above the 

 mining interests of the state are supporting a 

 bill proposing an appropriation of $240,000 

 for the construction of the mining engineer- 

 ing building and maintenance of the depart- 

 ment of mining engineering. The ceramic 

 interests are likewise supporting a bill pro- 

 posing an appropriation of $45,000 for the 

 department of ceramics. 



Dr. John G. Bowman, secretary of the Car- 

 negie Foundation, has been elected president 

 of the Iowa State University to succeed Dr. 

 George E. MacLean. 



The Eev. Dr. George Edward Reed has 

 resigned the presidency of Dickinson College 

 after twenty-two years of service. 



Eeoent appointments in the School of 

 Mines of the University of Pittsburgh are 

 Dr. Charles R. Eastman, of Harvard Univer- 

 sity, as professor of paleontology ; Otto Emery 

 Jennings, of the Carnegie Museum, as in- 

 structor in paleobotany, and James Z. Zim- 

 merman as assistant in mining. Mr. George 



T. Haldeman, instructor in mining, has re- 

 cently been appointed superintendent of the 

 Mine Rescue "Work of the Lehigh Valley Coal 

 Company and Mr. Edward L. Estabrook, as- 

 sistant in mineralogy, has been appointed 

 instructor in petrology at Lehigh University. 



Professor Victor R. Gardner, head of the 

 department of horticulture at the University 

 of Maine, has accepted the appointment of 

 associate professor of pomology at the Oregon 

 Agricultural College, to succeed Professor C. 

 A. Cole, who has resigned to take up indus- 

 trial work. 



Ernest Gale Martin, Ph.B. (Hamlin), 

 Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins), has been promoted 

 to an assistant professorship of physiology at 

 Harvard University. 



Dr. Th. Paul, professor of chemistry at 

 Munich, has been appointed director of the 

 laboratory of inorganic chemistry at Leipzig, 

 to succeed Professor Ernst Beckmann. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



the air we breathe in buildings 

 To the Editor of Science : Two or more 

 years ago my attention was drawn to the as- 

 tonishing and unfortunate condition of the 

 throats and tonsils of school children and the 

 number of children who had adenoids. This 

 led, through a series of investigations, to a 

 general study of the air which we breathe in 

 buildings. This air we all know is, somehow 

 or other, not as good for us, even under the 

 best conditions of ventilation, as the open air. 

 For example, children in open-air schools 

 systematically show greater increases in the 

 number of red blood corpuscles during the 

 school term than during vacation. The in- 

 vestigations of Benedict, Atwater, Paul, Hey- 

 man, Ercklentz and Fliigge, and of Dr. Leon- 

 ard Hill, of the London Hospital Medical 

 College, have given us a body of as yet un- 

 digested, although fundamentally important, 

 information. 



Dr. Oilman Thompson and Dr. Brennan, of 

 New York City, have changed the death rates 

 in pneumonia and certain other diseases by 

 placing the beds of patients either out of doors 



