SCIENCE 



FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1887. 



Nothing is GAlisrEo by maintaining profound secrecy and mys- 

 terious silence regarding the affairs of any institution that appeals 

 to the general public for support and encouragement. This is es- 

 pecially true in the case of educational institutions ; and, as a rule, 

 those colleges which have frankly stated their financial condition 

 and needs have been the first to be provided with the means of re- 

 adjusting and supplying them. The more progressive of the alumni 

 of Columbia College have for many years insisted that that college 

 was out of touch with the community because of the unwillingness 

 of the trustees to make known their plans and to ask for financial 

 aid. There was unquestionably much force in this position ; and 

 it was not surprising, therefore, that when, three years ago, after a 

 centurj' of dignified reserve, an appeal was finally made for four 

 million dollars to equip the university, no response was received. 

 It is to the credit of the alumni that they persistently criticised the 

 policy of the trustees, until now the point has been yielded by the 

 latter. Hereafter the alumni and friends of the college will receive 

 each year a digest of the annual reports of the president and treas- 

 urer on the state of the college. The first of these digests has just 

 been issued, and a copy is before us. We need not refer to that 

 portion of it which is taken from President Barnard's report, for 

 that was commented on in Science, No. 244. The abstract of 

 the treasurer's report, however, is new, and it presents many points 

 of interest. It shows the total income last year to have been $388,- 

 544.13, and the total e.'cpenditure $365,582.25. The surplus was 

 $22,961.88. By far the major portion of the income ($224,062.61) 

 was derived from rents, the next largest item being students' fees 

 ($142,127.50). Of the amount expended, $249,199.67 went for sal- 

 aries of professors and instructors, and only $8,744.25 was used to 

 buy books with. The bonded debt of the college is shown to be 

 $330,240, and the available cash to meet it with will be, by June 30, 

 1 888, $239,317. It will therefore be seen, that while Columbia is 

 heavily in debt at present, yet in two years at most the debt will be 

 paid, and then a large annual surplus will be available for the much- 

 needed extensions. It will be a glad day not only for Columbia, 

 but for the cause of university education in this country, when its 

 board of trustees has sufficient money to vote a generous sum for 

 the purchase of books, to properly equip the graduate departments 

 in philosophy and social science, — ■ in which particularly the demand 

 exceeds the supply, — -and to make marked extensions of the scien- 

 tific departments. We hope yet to hear that President Barnard 

 has been able to work out these problems, and to crown his distin- 

 guished and successful administration by the creation of a university 

 faculty of philosophy — -in the German sense — which shall be ab- 

 solutely distinct from the faculties of arts and mines, as at present 

 organized. In this step lies the possibility for Columbia's becom- 

 ing the metropolitan university. 



dation. He leaves it one of England's great public schools. Mr. 

 Thring's cardinal principle was the necessity forgiving every pupil 

 individual care, and not treating a whole school as a mass. The 

 faithful application of this principle was one cause of his great suc- 

 cess as an educator. As a speaker and writer he was direct and 

 inspiring, and his voice and pen will be greatly missed. Mr. 

 Thring stood side by side with Mr. Quick and Mr. Fitch, as one of 

 the three great public educators of England. 



By the sudden death of Rev. Edward Thring of Upping- 

 ham School, England, the cause of sound education is deprived of 

 the services of one of its ablest and best advocates. Mr. Thring's 

 name is as familiar on this side of the Atlantic as in Great Britain, 

 and his ' Theory and Practice of Teaching ' has had many readers 

 in this country. Mr. Thring was born in 1821, and was just com- 

 pleting his sixty-sixth year when he died. For thirty-four years he 

 has labored as a teacher, having been made head master of Up- 

 pingham School in 1853. When Mr. Thring went to Upping- 

 ham, he found a local grammar-school of an Elizabethan foun- 



The forthcoming crop report from the Department of 

 Agriculture will contain an interesting article from J. R. Dodge, 

 the statistician of the department, on India in wheat-competition, 

 that will go far toward dispelling the growing fear that competition 

 from India would seriously affect the wheat-growers of the United 

 States in the markets of Europe. Mr. Dodge points out the signifi- 

 cant facts, that, while a large increase in the wheat-growing area of 

 India is impossible, the annual home consumption of wheat is con- 

 stantly increasing ; and that, while it is true that with improved 

 methods of agriculture the present acreage will become more pro- 

 ductive, the increasing prosperity of the people will bring about a 

 corresponding increase in wheat-consumption. Mr. Dodge thinks 

 that much of the increase in the exportation of wheat from India 

 which followed the opening-up of railroads into the interior was 

 due to the shipping of the accumulated surplus that had been 

 stored up for use in the famine years. The conclusion to be drawn 

 from Mr. Dodge's article is, that the export for 1887, of about 42,- 

 000,000 bushels, is very near the maximum that maybe expected 

 from India. 



ASPECTS OF EDUCATION. 

 The English Public School. 



The term ' public school' is difficult to define. In England it 

 has a meaning different from what it has in America. The Ameri- 

 can public school is a school supported by the community, and open 

 to all the worid. When it is said that public schools are the back- 

 bone of the American system of education, it is implied that there 

 exists all over America a number of schools affording a liberal ed- 

 ucation, either free or very inexpensive, accessible to all classes of 

 the community alike. An English public school implies something 

 exclusive and privileged. A public-school man is different from other 

 men. The question as to whether a particular school is a public 

 school or not, depends not upon its size or its efficiency, but upon its 

 social rank. The American public schools are day schools: the Eng- 

 lish public school in the strict sense is essentially a boarding-school. 

 Our public schools are few in number, confined to particular districts, 

 costly, and very diverse in individual character ; yet it is said that 

 they represent more completely than any other English institution 

 the chief peculiarities of our national life. It is the public school 

 that forms the typical Englishman : it is the ordinary boy of the 

 upper classes who gives his character to the public school. We 

 have to inquire, first, what are the English public schools ? second, 

 how did they come to be what they are ? third, what are their prin- ■ 

 cipal characteristics, and what relation do they bear to the educa- 

 tional system of England ? 



When the English Government undertook, some twenty-five years 

 ago, to inquire into the condition of our secondary education, nine 

 schools were singled out from the rest as pre-eminent. These were 

 Winchester, Eton, Westminster, Charter House, Harrow, Rugby, 

 Merchant Taylor's, St. Paul's, and Shrewsbury. Captain de Car- 

 teret Bisson, in his valuable work ' Our Schools and Colleges,' ap- 

 parently disputes the'right of the last three, and reckons our public 

 schools at six. These six, between them, do not educate much more 



