SEPTEMBER 17, 1897. ] 
THE report of the committee of the British 
Council on Education on schools for the blind 
and deaf, for the past year, has been published 
as a Blue-book, signed by the Duke of Devon- 
shire and Sir John Gorst, and is abstracted in 
the London Times. During the year ending 
August 31, 1896, the number of certified schools 
increased from 84 to 91. These schools provide 
accommodation for 1,476 blind children (268 
day scholars and 1,208 boarders), and for 3,004 
deaf children (1,699 day scholars and 1,305 
boarders). The total grants paid for the year 
amounted to £15,629 12s. A general report by 
the Rey. T. W. Sharpe, Senior Chief Inspector, 
follows, covering the year ended March 31, 
1897. He states that the year has been marked 
by steady progress, and pleads for higher pay- 
ment of teachers, both for the blind and deaf. 
The hope is expressed that a recent return 
called for by the department will produce some 
result. This return requires each. school au- 
thority to give the name of every blind and 
deaf child in its district between the ages of 5 
and 16 and 7 and 16 respectively. The address 
of the parent or guardian and the provision 
made under the statute for the education of the 
child are also required. With regard to deaf 
children, Mr Sharpe states that the teaching on 
the oral system in some institutions is very im- 
perfectly carried out, and that oral teaching is 
in danger of being discredited from the fact 
that, however excellent the school teaching 
may be, the continued practice of speech out- 
side the schoolroom is either left to chance or 
so mixed with signs that it receives very little 
care. 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 
Dr. ANDREWS has withdrawn his resignation 
from the presidency of Brown University. 
WE should be glad to welcome a ‘ Cosmopoli- 
tan’ reading circle or Correspondence School, 
even though its standard should be no higher 
than that of The Cosmopolitan magazine. But 
the projectors of the ‘ Cosmopolitan University ’ 
cannot make silver equal to gold by debasing a 
name. Fortunately, the performance is illegal 
in the State of New York. Section 33, Chapter 
SCIENCE. 
445 
378, of the laws of the State reads as fol- 
lows: 
No individual, association or corporation not hold- 
ing university or college degree-conferring powers by 
special charter from the Legislature of the State or 
from the regents shall confer any degrees, or after 
January 1, 1893, shall transact business under or in 
any way assume the name university or college, till 
it shall have received from the regents under their 
seal written permission to use such name. 
The minimum requirements for a degree-con- 
ferring institution have been carefully defined 
by the regents, and it is scarcely needful to 
state that these cannot be met by an annex to 
a magazine. 
AN editorial in the last number of the Hdu- 
cational Review on the Brown University inci- 
dent concludes with the moral: ‘‘ What a com- 
ment this occurrence is on the project for a 
national university at Washington, that is still 
kept alive by earnest but, we believe, misguided 
men!’’? The article was written on the assump- 
tion that ‘‘ Rhode Island and Providence will 
not support an educational institution in which 
an officer of prominence holds views antago- 
nistic to their own on an economic question that 
is under present discussion.’? The frank and 
wise declaration of the corporation of Brown 
University for academic freedom, even under 
ageravating circumstances, shows that the Hdu- 
cational Review is needlessly pessimistic in its 
point of view. It would, indeed, be better to 
have a struggle for academic freedom in a na- 
tional university and lose than not to have the 
university and the struggle. The effect on 
other universities and on the education of the 
people would be beneficial, and the defeat would 
be but temporary. Neither pedagogy nor poli- 
tics is at present a science, and they only come 
within the scope of this JoURNAL in so far as 
they concern the advancement of science. But 
an affiliation of the national scientific institu- 
tions at Washington, with power to grant de- 
grees for research, would be the basis for a 
university in which science and investigation 
would have the place now held at Oxford, e. g., 
bythe classics and information. It is a scientific 
experiment that all men of science should ad- 
vocate. 
THE Educational Review, however, appears to 
