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SCIENCE. 



[N.S. Vol. XX. No. 500. 



tific investigation, and their great professors 

 attracted many students from all parts of the 

 world in quest of higher education. But 

 times are altered. Having myself heen en- 

 gaged in educational work as an American col- 

 lege professor for a good part of my man- 

 hood, I have naturally taken considerable in- 

 terest in the life and work at the various in- 

 stitutions of learning in this country, and it 

 is my impression that the facilities for higher 

 education are improving in the United States 

 much more rapidly than in Germany. Despite 

 all our imperfections one can not but admire 

 the great upward strides which the American 

 system of education, from the humble district 

 school up, has been making during the last few 

 decades. 



American educational institutions are the 

 best equipped in the world. I know but one 

 German university that can claim to be up to 

 the times in this regard, and it stands third 

 in the list of attendance. There is a steady 

 progress all along the line of public instruction 

 in the United States, and particularly in our 

 higher class of universities. 



The regular reports of German universities 

 will continue to show the attendance of Ameri- ' 

 can students. Though their number may not 

 increase materially, still they come. And it 

 is well that they should, particularly those 

 that have in view special studies and investiga- 

 tions in certain lines ; for Germany is pre- 

 eminently the land of specialists, and it must 

 be admitted that German devotion to special 

 work has added immensely to the sum of 

 knowledge. Besides, a year or two spent 

 abroad can not but prove to be a great blessing 

 to the average American student, not because 

 he needs it to prepare him for his life's work, 

 but because travel and sojourn in this and 

 other countries are in themselves a liberal 

 education, and tend to broaden the mind, 

 widen the horizon, remove petty prejudices, 

 and supply an independent judgTaent of men 

 and matters. A few semesters at a German 

 university, bringing a young man in touch 

 with the ideas and methods of the great schol- 

 ars and scientists of this country, as well as 

 with the spirit of the German student's life, is 

 an advantage generally appreciated all through 



life. But all this is rather a luxury than a 

 necessity. No American need any longer come 

 to this or go to any other country for higher 

 education. In my judgment the United States 

 offers to-day facilities for collegiate, academ- 

 ical and postgraduate studies equal in quantity 

 and quality to those offered by any country in 

 the Old World. Henry W. Diederich, 



Consul. 

 Bremen, Germany, 

 June 10, 1904. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 



The daily papers announce, we trust cor- 

 rectly, that Dr. Harry Tevis will establish in 

 San Francisco an aquarium in honor of his 

 father, the late Lloyd Tevis, which will be the 

 finest institution of the kind in the world, 

 the cost being $3,000,000 to $4,000,000. The 

 aquarium will, it is said, be built in Golden 

 Gate Park. Mr. John Galen Howard, super- 

 vising architect of the University of Cali- 

 fornia, is preparing the plans. 



Sir Joseph Daltou Hooker, the great 

 British botanist, celebrated on June 30 his 

 eighty-seventh birthday. 



Dr. Kuno Fischer, professor of philosophy 

 at Heidelberg, celebrated on June 23 his 

 eightieth birthday. 



Dr. Egbert Koch has been made honorary 

 professor of the University of Berlin as well 

 as a member of the Academy of Sciences in 

 succession to Virchow. There are only two 

 other similar positions at Berlin, the one held 

 by Professor Auwers, the astronomer, the other 

 by Professor Van't Hoff, the chemist. 



The Paris Academy of Sciences has elected 

 as corresponding members M. Eugene Tisser- 

 and in the section of agriculture and Dr. E. 

 Metschnikoff in the section of anatomy and 

 zoology. 



Dr. Pietro Blaserna, professor of physics 

 at Rome, has been elected president of the 

 Accademia dei Lincei. 



It is stated in Nature that a committee has 

 been formed in the Victoria University of 

 Manchester to procure a portrait of Professor 

 Osborne Reynolds, E.R.S., the senior member 

 of the teaching staff, as a memorial of the 



