SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, JANUARY 21, 1887. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 



The American libbary association is not 

 satisfied with tbe present apportionment of the 

 public documents. A special committee, headed 

 by Librarian Samuel S. Green of Worcester, Mass., 

 has addressed a communication to tlie senate com- 

 mittee on printing, enclosing tlie draught of a reso- 

 lution, which, if favorably acted upon, will satisfy 

 their wants. The resolution provides that " the 

 public printer shall deliver to the Interior depart- 

 ment a sufficient number of copies of the Congres- 

 sional record (bound), ' statutes-at-large,' and of 

 every other government publication, not already 

 supplied for this purpose, printed at the govern- 

 ment printing-office, including the publications of 

 all bureaus and offices of the government, except- 

 ing bills, resolutions, documents printed for the 

 special use of committees of congress, and circu- 

 lars designed not for communicating information 

 to the public, but for use within the several execu- 

 tive departments and offices of the government, 

 to enable said department to supply a copy to every 

 depository of public documents designated accord- 

 ing to law." The association also believes it 

 would be well if copies of some of the public docu- 

 ments of greatest interest could be sent to such 

 public libraries, not depositories, as have more 

 than a minimum number of volumes, — say, 5,000 

 or 10,000. It is urged that the expense need not 

 be large, for fewer than five hundred copies would 

 be needed, and there would be no charge for com- 

 position, but only for paper, binding, and press- 

 work. There is a great deal of force in this sug- 

 gestion, and we should be glad to see it receive 

 legislative sanction. Every year our public docu- 

 ments become more valuable, and a larger number 

 of them are of general importance. The reading 

 public should have free access to these volumes at 

 convenient centres of population, and the plan of 

 the library association would accomplish this. 



cerning the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. 

 It is of most general interest to know what sala- 

 ries celebrated jirofessors receive, how much lec- 

 turing they are required to do, and how many 

 hearers they have. On all of these heads the re- 

 turn is very full and explicit. At Oxford Canon 

 Driver, regius professor of Hebrew, gave in 1885 

 a hundred and five lectures to classes of from fifty 

 to sixty students. His salary is £1,500. Pro- 

 fessor Bryce of the chair of civil law delivered 

 twenty ordinary and two public lectures. No 

 record was kept of the attendance. Professor 

 Bryce's salary is £435. Professor Sylvester, Savil- 

 ian professor of geometry, gave forty lectures to 

 fourteen students. His salary is £700. Prof. E. 

 B. Tylor, the anthropologist, receives £200, and 

 lectures eighteen times to about twenty-five hear- 

 ers. Prof. Benjamin Jowett, the Hellenist, re- 

 ceives £500 per annum, and did not lecture in 

 1885, as he was vice-chancellor of the university. 

 Prof. A. H. Sayce had only from three to sixteen 

 hearers for his lectures on comparative philol- 

 ogy. He receives £300. The professor of moral 

 philosophy, William Wallace, receives £400 a 

 year, and has from forty-eight to seventy students 

 at his twenty-eight lectures. Professor Freeman 

 keeps no record of the number of his hearers. 

 His salary is £700, and he gives forty-two lectures 

 during the academic year. 



A great mass of detail of much interest to the 

 students of university organization and work is 

 contained in a recent parliamentary return con- 

 No. 207. — 1887. 



At Cambridge things are not very much differ- 

 ent, but we may cite a few examples for the sake 

 of comparison. Canon Westcott, professor of 

 divinity, has a salary of about £800. He gave in 

 1885 sixty-six lectures, and his audience varied 

 from ten to three hundred and fifty. Professor 

 Stokes, of the chair of mathematics, receives £470, 

 and delivers forty lectures to about eight students. 

 The Knightsbridge professor of moral philosophy, 

 Henry Sidgwick, has £700, and delivered eighty- 

 seven lectures to from four to twenty hearers. 

 Professor Darwin, of the chair of experimental 

 philosophy, gave forty lectures, and had eighteen 

 students. His salary is £580. The professor of 

 modern history, J. R. Seeley, has an income of 

 £371, and gave one lecture a week for two terms, 

 averaging ninety hearers. He had, in addition, 

 sixty ladies who were preparing for the university 



