January io, 1890.] 



SCIENCE. 



25 



relate to uniformity in surveying laws ; in the reporting, marking, 

 and removing of dangerous wrecks, derelicts, and other obstruc- 

 tions to navigation ; and in the transmission of weather signals and 

 storm warnings. This, we trust, is only the first of a series of 

 similar conferences. 



— The November meeting of the Chicago Institute of Education 

 was quite a lively affair in comparison with the usual solemnity of 

 the occasion, as we learn from Intelligence. The paper was by 

 Fernando Sanford of the Englewood High School on the " Disci- 

 plinary Value of Scientific Study." It was a well-knitted plea for 

 the genuine study of science, and for the formation of the habits of 

 seeing and stating propositions that the actual study of nature pro- 

 duces. It deprecated the usual text-book study of science as un- 

 worthy of a place in any respectable school. The paper laid con- 

 siderable stress on the idea that every pupil should interrogate 

 nature for himself and find his own answers ; that every subject 

 should be taught by investigating it as if nothing had before been 

 known about it. The president, Mr. Rowland, wanted to put in a few 

 words which he thought it possible the audience would not wish to 



■ remember more than three minutes, and he hoped they would not. 

 Nevertheless, he wanted to say, that, while it was a charming paper, 

 possibly the best one on the subject he ever heard or read, he did not 

 believe in its doctrine at all. He did not believe that it is so neces- 

 sary or so advantageous for children to handle the actual objects, 

 to make so many experiments, to verify so many statements. The 

 proposition that school children should investigate departments of 

 science as if nothing had previously been known about them, and 

 that the science learned from text-books is worthless, struck him 

 as absurd. The other day he visited a school in which the pupils 

 were studying a squirrel. He listened to their discovery of the 

 number of toes it had, the way its joints bent, etc., etc. After all, 

 what good did it do them .' What did they learn about the squir- 

 rel that they did not know before .' If children had got to study 

 science just as if the world had already learned nothing, where is 

 the blessing of living in this nineteenth century .'' of inheriting the 

 accumulated intelligence of the ages? He didn't believe we should 

 throw away all that past generations have discovered ; in other 

 words, all our books, and start our pupils in the study of nature 

 where the human race began. He believed he had as clear and 

 complete an idea of a camel before he ever saw one as he had 

 afterwards. Talk about pupils proving that a floating body will 

 displace its own weight of the fluid ! What for.? He never 

 proved it or saw it proved. Yet he knew it, knew it as absolutely 

 as if he had performed the experiment a hundred times. He 

 didn't believe there ever was a time when he didn't know it. And 

 so of the great mass of facts and principles which the paper would 

 require to be taught inductively. Life is too short for us to in- 

 dulge so freely in the time-wasting process of induction. He 

 didn't believe in it. Let the pupil have the full benefit of his in- 

 heritance, and start with the present instead of with the beginning 

 of time. And besides, man himself is the important element in 

 this world. He and his institutions are more worth studying than 

 all the rest beside. He would much rather study man than the 

 rocks or the trees. It would be a misfortune if the advice of the 

 paper were followed in our schools. 



— The endeavor to establish a botanic garden in the City of 

 Montreal, three years ago, though it met with great opposition at 

 the time, says Garden and Forest, is likely to be realized at no dis- 

 tant day, though the original plan has been greatly modified. For 

 some time past efforts have been directed toward the establish- 

 ment of a garden in connection with McGill University, and the 

 end has been so far attained that a portion of the grounds, em- 

 bracing somewhat more than three acres, has been set apart for 

 that purpose, the intention being to occupy eventually about six 

 acres. During the past season a pond for aquatic plants has been 

 constructed, and walks and beds have so far been laid out that 

 planting will begin with the opening of spring. There are already 

 in the grounds upward of one hundred native and exotic trees and 

 shrubs, besides a fair collection of herbaceous plants. These will 

 be added to from the native flora. There are also on hand several 

 hundred specimens raised from seed received from the Imperial 

 Botanic Gardens of St. Petersburg, and the Royal Gardens, Kew, 



all of which have been raised and cared for in private grounds and 

 conservatories. Active efforts are being made for the construc- 

 tion of a conservatory, which it is hoped may be erected soon. It 

 is the intention to adapt the garden to the purposes of collegiate 

 work and the representation of the native flora, together with such 

 e.xolic species as may be hardy and prove otherwise desirable. 



— According to the San Francisco Examiner, Mr. Adolph Sutro 

 is experimenting with cinchona-trees on his estate on the neighbor- 

 ing sea-coast. He hopes to acclimatize at least some of the varie- 

 ties from which quinine is produced ; and, if so, will doubtless be 

 more than repaid for his enterprise. 



— The " flower festivals " of the Japanese are often referred to 

 without clear explanation of their number and character. As ex- 

 plained in Garden and Forest, five are annually celebrated. At 

 the New Year's feast, on the first day of the first month, the chief 

 plants used are bamboos, firs, Prumts Mume and Adonis Amu- 

 rensis. The first two are set by the house-door, and the others 

 are displayed in the living-room. At the second, or " girls' festi- 

 val," which is held on the third day of the third month. Primus 

 Persica is the favorite plant. At the third, or " boys' festival," on 

 the fifth day of the fifth month, one sees chiefly the shobu {Iris 

 lavigata); while at the fourth, or "ladies' festival," on the seventh 

 day of the seventh month, no flowers are favored, but songs are 

 written on bits of paper fastened to leafy stalks of bamboo and set 

 on high in the garden. The last feast occurs on the ninth day of 

 the ninth month, and then the chrysanthemum is honored by old 

 and young alike. These various celebrations have always been 

 held in accordance with the dates of the old national calendar ; but 

 now that the Gregorian calendar has been introduced, it is found 

 difficult to procure the proper plants on the proper day. The great 

 imperial feast in honor of the crysanthemum has no special time 

 set for it, but is held whenever the flowers in the Emperor's gar- 

 den are in most perfect condition. 



— Those who have read of the Rauhe Haus at Horn, near Ham- 

 burg, Germany, that remarkable and unique institution of Im- 

 manuel Wichern, will recognize in it a prototype of that little 

 industrial community which more than two years ago was estab- 

 lished in Columbia County, New York, under the name, "The 

 Burnham Industrial Farm." The two are alike in purpose, in 

 spirit, and in the methods of training employed. Wichern s exper- 

 iment is, however, widely known, and its success has been demon- 

 strated in its beneficent results, while Burnham Farm is yet in its 

 infancy, unknown even to many of the good people of our own State. 

 The Burnham Industrial Farm, as described in The State Char- 

 ities Record, was organized to save boys who are tending toward 

 the criminal classes. The lack of proper classification or facilities 

 therefor in the reformatory institutions of the State, forcing the 

 boys committeed who have not yet become depraved or incorrigi- 

 ble into the companionship of those in whom criminal habits are 

 fully developed, was the condition which was strongest in urging 

 the establishment of a home like this, far removed from the city, 

 on a large farm in healthful surroundings, where these truant and 

 vagrant boys not yet incorrigible might be sent, might live under 

 good moral influences and have opportunity for the training of 

 hand and mind. The farm, formerly an old Shaker settlement, 

 comprises 580 acres of land, under a fairly good state of cultivation, 

 in a "region of pure air and lovely fields and forests." Lake 

 Oueechy bounds it on one side and the mountains look down upon 

 it. The farm is organized on the family plan. The cottages left 

 by the Shakers have become the home each of a group of boys. 

 The system of awards and punishments is that of Mettray. There 

 is a department of manual training for the boys where those show- 

 ing special aptness are taught full trades, and others prepared to 

 enter trades as advanced apprentices. Some will be taught farm- 

 ing, some gardening, and all, that labor is ennobling. The disci- 

 pline is firm yet kind, and each boy has some one interested in him 

 individually. There are no walls about the farm ; everything is 

 free and open. Though established less than three years ago there 

 are already good results to be seen. Fifty-two boys have been at 

 the farm, and of those more than twenty have, after a training of a 

 year or more, been sent back to their parents or to places found for 

 them, cured of bad tendencies. 



