896 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIII. No. 1121 



priate an equal sum. In the first year the sum 

 of $200,000 is for administration and investi- 

 gation, $500,000 for training teachers for voca- 

 tional work, and $1,000,000 for payment of 

 teachers, equally divided between agriculture, 

 on the one side, and trade, home economics 

 and industry, on the other. 



Of special interest to scientific men is the 

 ITewlands bill establishing research stations 

 in engineering, corresponding to the existing 

 agricultural stations in the colleges of agri- 

 culture and the mechanic arts. These land 

 grant colleges and their agricultural research 

 stations have been of incalculable value to edu- 

 cation, to agriculture, to the states and to the 

 nation. They have been largely responsible 

 for the establishment and development of the 

 state universities. The land grant colleges and 

 the institutions of which they are a part re- 

 ceived in 1914 from the United States $2,500,- 

 000; from the states and from other sources 

 over $30,000,000. They have 9,000 instructors 

 and 105,000 students. 



By the Hatch act of 1887 and the Adams act 

 of 1906 the sum of $30,000 a year is appro- 

 priated for research in agriculture in the ex- 

 periment stations. The colleges have more 

 students of mechanic arts than of agriculture, 

 but there is no similar provision for research 

 in the mechanic arts and engineering, and the 

 sciences, such as physics and chemistry, on 

 which they are based. The agricultural inter- 

 ests have always had great influence on legis- 

 lation and in this case they have led the way. 

 It is to be hoped that research in the engi- 

 neering sciences will now be equally encour- 

 aged by the passage of the Newlands bill, which 

 appropriate $15,000 to each state and territory 

 for conducting investigations in engineering 

 and publishing the results. 



Some scientific men may believe that more 

 could be accomplished by the establishment of 

 one great research laboratory or by granting 

 the money only to institutions already distin- 

 guished for their contributions to science. 

 There is, however, much to be said for ini- 

 tiating investigation in fifty widely scattered 

 centers where work is already being done in 

 agricultural science. It brings the value of 

 research to the attention of the students of the 



college and the people of the state, and each 

 station has the possibility of great develop- 

 ment. In any ease the passage of the bill as it 

 stands is the most feasible method at present 

 to extend research and will forward rather 

 than interfere with other methods. — The Scien- 

 tific Monthly. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



The Mathematical Theory of Prohahilities. 

 By Arne Fisher, F.S.S. Translated and 

 edited from the author's original Danish 

 notes with the assistance of William 

 BoNYNGE, B.A., with an introductory note 

 by F. W. Frankland, F.I.A., F.A.S., F.S.S. 

 New York, The Macmillan Company. Vol. 

 I. Pp. ix + 171. 



Although a considerable number of standard 

 text-books on probability have appeared in re- 

 cent years in foreign languages, there is a 

 lack of such books in the English language. 

 Both on this account and because of the selec- 

 tion of subject-matter, the present book should 

 be particularly useful. Research work in the 

 theory of probability has received during the 

 past twenty years a new impetus, through the 

 labors of certain mathematical statisticians. 

 In this connection, we may perhaps mention 

 particularly the work of Pearson in England, 

 Lexis in Germany, Westergaard in Denmark. 

 Each group of investigators seems to have 

 moved along its particular line. In the pres- 

 ent work an attempt is made to treat these 

 researches from a common point of view based 

 on the mathematical principles grounded in 

 the work of Laplace, " Theorie analytique des 

 Probabilites." 



The introductory chapter consists of a brief 

 discussion of the general principles and philo- 

 sophical aspects of a theory of probability. 

 Here, in the determination of what events are 

 to be regarded as " equally likely," both the 

 principle of " insufficient reason " and the 

 principle of " cogent reason " are illustrated, 

 and the inference is drawn that a compromise 

 of the two principles gives us a valuable mean- 

 ing of " equally likely." Then follow some 

 interesting historical and biographical notes. 



