September 9, 1892.] 



SCIENCE. 



145 



anything for them. They are keenly disappointed at not being 

 acknowledged as perfect in their studies, and are ever anxious to 

 show their learning. It takes a long titfle to work them down to 

 their proper level. Teacher and pupil should ever seek truth. 

 They must come to their work in a spirit of earnestness, absolute 

 honesty, candor, and sincerity, otherwise the work will be a 

 failure. The really true teacher Is an inspired man. He draws 

 the pupils around him, because he is himself interested in his 

 studies. Such were the great teachers of old, and if any of us now 

 succeed in any measure as teachers, it is only so far as we possess 

 interest and enthusiasm in our studies. 



Frederic Harrison, with forty years' active experience in educa- 

 tional work, in writing of late, said : " I have for years past joined 

 in the discussions and conferences on this question ; and now I 

 feel at times that we are further off the right path than ever, as 

 if our whole system were a failure. There are hours when I feel 

 about education nothing but this, — wipe it out, and let us begin 

 it all afresh." This was written a few months ago with reference 

 to education in England; but it was in relation to some of the 

 very matters that are engaging our attention in this country at 

 the present time. I cannot go so far as Harrison does in this ex- 

 pression of his opinion. 1 know the public schools of this country 

 have done and are doing a useful and a noble work. The nation 

 cannot do without them, nor can it afford to permit their useful- 

 ness to be impaired through lack of support and sympathy. Give 

 them the support and encouragement they need and deserve, and 

 they will be improved, and the coimtry profited thereby. Honest 

 and intelligent interest in the schools should lead to improvements 

 in their condition. If changes in the system seem desirable, let 

 them be made. Let neither prejudice nor individual selfishness 

 stand in the way. It has more than once been stated by Amei'ican 

 educators of experience and high standing that science-teaching 

 is difficult, and that there are few, very few, teachers capable of 

 engaging in it. I fear there is much truth in this statement. 

 Science, like any other subject of education, must be taught by a 

 competent person. It is folly to expect proper results from persons 

 who have not both the natural and the acquired qualifications of 

 a true teacher, and it is much greater folly to expect them from 

 those who have neither of these two qualifications. Teachers 

 possessed of both are indeed rare ; and how can we expect them to 

 be plentiful so long as the trustees and boards of education, and 

 the people behind the trustees and boards, remain satisfied with 

 so low a standard ? When the public come to realize that a 

 higher standard of qualifications, mental and moral, on the part 

 of the teacher, is absolutely necessary for the welfare of our 

 country, when they come to have a heartier appreciation of high- 

 class attainments, they will be willing to make adequate compen- 

 sation for the teacher's labors and influence, they will seek teachers 

 of longer and better training and experience, teachers who carry 

 with them an atmosphere of a higher and a more inspiring char- 

 acter. I have hope that this time will come. Let us do what we 

 can to bring about these conditions. For the sake of the youth 

 of our land, for the sake of the material, the physical, the moral, 

 and the intellectual advancement of our country, for the sake of 

 evei-ything that can contribute towards the promotion of the civ- 

 ilization of this great nation, let us earnestly pray that the dawn 

 of that day may be hastened, that the free public-school system, 

 which forms a net-work throughout the length and breadth of 

 this Union, may, more truly and fully than ever in the past, yield 

 those practical and beneficent results anticipated by its founders, 

 hoped for by its friends, and rendered necessary by the foundation 

 principles of the government of a free people. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



A REPORT on the petroleum trade of the Caucasus has been 

 sent to the Turkish Government by Aassib, the Turkish Consul- 

 General at Tifiis, and some interesting extracts from it are quoted 

 in the British Board of Trade Journal. The petroleum springs 

 of the peninsula of Apcheron, not fai- from the place at present 

 occupied by the town of Baku, were known, according to the 

 writer, several centuries before the Christian era, and the phe- 

 nomena produced by them, totally inexplicable in those barbaric 



ages, gave rise, he says, to the worship of the Guebres, followers 

 of Zoroaster, which lasted into the nineteenth century, for the 

 temple of the worshippers of eternal fire is seen to the present 

 day. The springs of Balakhani are situated 30 kilometers from 

 Baku on a bare and arid plateau, swept by the winds, at an eleva- 

 tion of about 60 meters above the level of the Caspian Sea. The 

 petroleum lands occupy an area of about 8 kilometers. At the 

 present time Balakhani and Sabountchi possess more than 1,000 

 wells, some of them nev.'ly bored, producing in twenty-four hours 

 as much as 400,000 ponds. An era was marked in the history of 

 the naphtha industry by the house of M. Nobel, which started at 

 Baku in 1874, and in the following year purchased a small busi- 

 ness and undertook the production of petroleum on a small scale. 

 At that time the conveyance of petroleum to Baku was effected 

 by means of carts and leather bottles. M. Nobel endeavored to 

 show the absurdity of this primitive method of transport, and rec- 

 ommended that pipes should be constructed, but the majority of 

 the merchants rejected the proposal. He then constructed the 

 first pipe at his own cost, and demonstrated the utility of it to his 

 colleagues, several of whom very soon imitated his example, and 

 Baku has to-day a dozen lines of pipes, each of which cost more 

 than 100,000 roubles. The same house, dissatisfied with the .sys- 

 tem of shipping petroleum in barrels, proposed to the Kavkaz and 

 Mercury Navigation Company of the Caspian and the Volga that 

 they should build tank-boats for the exclusive conveyance of 

 petroleum. This proposal having been rejected, the firm con- 

 structed several of these vessels at their own expense. This in- 

 novation, of which even the Americans had not yet thought, was 

 accepted by the two petroleum-producing countries, and tank- 

 boats, the number of which is constantly increasing, are to be 

 found on all the waters of the civilized world. It is also to M. 

 Nobel that those gigantic reservoirs of iron which contain hun- 

 dreds of thousands of naptha products are due. They are to be 

 seen in large numbers at Baku, Batoum, and everywhere else 

 where petroleum is carried in bulk. The series of innovations 

 by M. Nobel do not stop there. With a desire to improve land- 

 carriage he proposed to the Griazi-Tsaritsine Railway Company 

 the construction of special tank-wagons for the transport of the 

 petroleum, guaranteeing a load for them for several years. The 

 railway authorities scoffed at the idea, and it was by the expendi- 

 ture of very large sums that the Swedish merchant constructed 

 for his own use the first tank-wagons. Scorn was immediately 

 chaiiged to enthusiasm, and to-day thousands of these wagons cir- 

 culate on the railways of Caucasia and Griazi-Tsaritsine. 



— The following appointments have been made at the Michgan 

 Mining School: Dr. George A. Konig, late of the University of 

 Pennsylvania, professor of chemistry ; Edgar Kidwell, professor 

 of mechanical and electrical engineering ; Fred F. Sharpless, pro- 

 fessor of metallurgy, Fred W. Denton, professor of civil and 

 mining engineering. All these except Professor Konig have been 

 connected with this school for several years as instructors, and 

 have earned their promotion. Dr. Horace B. Patton has been 

 appointed instructor in mineralogy and petrography ; Dr. Alfred 

 C. Lane, instructor in petrography and geology. These two have 

 been connected both with the State Survey and with the Mining 

 School for several years. Mr. Carroll L. Hoyt, a graduate of Cor- 

 nell University in the mechanical engineering department, has been 

 appointed instructor in drawing and mechanical engineering. 



— A cuneiform tablet has been found at Tel Hesy, the ancient 

 Lachish, by Mr. J. F. Bliss, who is excavating for the Palestine 

 Exploration Fund. According to Prefessor A. H. Sayce of Ox- 

 ford it contains the name of the same officer who is mentioned on 

 tablets from Lachish, found some years since at El Amarna in 

 Egypt. 



— Sir John Lubbock wUl shortly issue, through the Messrs. 

 Macmillan & Co., a work entitled "The Beauties of Nature and 

 the Wonders of the World," uniform with his " Pleasures of 

 Life." 



— Messrs. Macmillan cfe Co. have in press, to be issued very 

 shortly under American copyright, a long-expected " History of 

 Early English Literature," by Rev. Stopford A. Brooke. 



