OCTOBEE 16, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



565 



and Portuguese, the first. Any system of this 

 kind, if rigidly adhered to, is of vast aid in 

 cataloguing. How to catalogue such a name 

 as " du Bois Eejrmond " is one of the ever- 

 recurring puzzles of bibliography. In listing 

 abbreviations, the Eoyal Society Committee 

 still adheres, in many instances, to the prac- 

 tise of placing the locality of a given society 

 at the head of the abbreviation of the title of 

 its transactions, instead of after it, as ordi- 

 narily, which sometimes loses it under an un- 

 known entry. In some cases, this difficulty is 

 obviated by a cross reference, but the custom 

 can not be commended. A few very trifling 

 errors have been noted, such as the confusion 

 of J. S. Billings, Sr. and Jr., but these are 

 surprisingly rare in a work of such vast ex- 

 tent. The impeccable typography is in itself 

 a token of accuracy in indexing. The entire 

 series, when completed, will be one of those in- 

 valuable works which no scientific library can 

 do without for any length of time. 



F. H. Garrison, M.D. 

 Army Medical Museum 



THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE COMMITTEE 

 The seventh conference of the National 

 Conference Committee on Standards of Col- 

 leges and Secondary Schools was held at the 

 rooms of the Carnegie Foundation for the 

 Advancement of Teaching, New York, on 

 February 28. 



The following delegates were present as 

 representatives of the organizations indicated: 



Headmaster Wilson Farrand, Newark Academy, 

 representing tlie College Entrance Examination 

 Board, President. 



Dean Frederick C. Ferry, Williams College, rep- 

 resenting the New England Association of Colleges 

 and Preparatory Schools, Secretary-Treasurer. 



Professor Frank W. Nicolson, Wesleyan Univer- 

 sity, representing the New England College En- 

 trance Certificate Board. 



Dean Frederick P. Keppel, Columbia University, 

 representing the Association of Colleges and Pre- 

 paratory Schools of the Middle States and Mary- 

 land. 



Principal Frederick L. Bliss, Detroit University 

 School, representing the North Central Association 

 of Colleges and Secondary Schools. 



Chancellor James H. Kirkland, Vanderbilt Uni- 

 versity, representing the Association of Colleges 

 and Secondary Schools of the Southern States. 



President John G. Bowman, The State Univer- 

 sity of Iowa, representing the National Associa- 

 tion of State Universities. 



Secretary Clyde Furst, as substitute for Presi- 

 dent Henry S. Pritchett, representing the Carnegie 

 Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. 



Honorable Philander P. Claxton, the United 

 States Commissioner of Education. 



There was present also, by invitation, as a 

 visitor. Dr. Samuel P. Capen, specialist in 

 higher education in the National Bureau of 

 Education. 



Headmaster Wilson Farrand, president of 

 the committee, presided at both the morning 

 and the afternoon sessions. 



The subcommittee, consisting of Head- 

 master Farrand (chairman). Dean Ferry, 

 President Pritchett and Principal Bliss, gave 

 a report of an investigation made by its chair- 

 man to ascertain the number of recitation 

 periods per week devoted to Mathematics A, 

 History A, History B, History C, History D 

 and Civics (as a separate study), the year in 

 the course when each of these subjects is 

 taken by the pupil, and the number of periods 

 per week which constitute the normal schedule 

 of the pupils in the schools considered. In- 

 formation had been procured from 363 schools 

 widely scattered through the country. The 

 results seemed to the committee to warrant 

 the raising of the question of increasing the 

 weight (in units) given to Mathematics A 

 and decreasing the weight given to each of the 

 four history subjects. 



The subcommittee suggested also the con- 

 sideration of the proposal presented from vari- 

 ous sources, and particularly from the North 

 Central Association of Colleges and Secondary 

 Schools, that there be a discrimination among 

 units according to the time in the secon- 

 dary school curriculum when the subject is 

 studied; e. g., units of the first two years 

 might be called " minor " units, those of the 

 last two years " major " units, and perhaps 

 those of the second and third years " inter- 

 mediate " units. A third suggestion was to 



