Miscellaneous Intelligence. 89 



the General Education Board undertook the survey. The field 

 covered embraces the elementary and secondary schools of the 

 counties, but not the schools of" Baltimore. The general decision 

 reached is that the public education of Maryland is on the whole 

 soundly organized and that the State deals with it generously, 

 although some of the counties do less than their share. Practi- 

 cally, however, while a few counties have good schools, many of 

 the schools are inferior, the inspection ineffective, the children 

 irregular in attendance, and the buildings very unsatisfactory; 

 for much of this the influence of politics is unfortunately respon- 

 sible. The report discusses in detail the individual schools 

 themselves and offers suggestions as to legislation calculated to 

 improve the situation. These results are highly important, not 

 for Maryland alone but for other States also, particularly those 

 like it having a large negro population. 



3. The General Education Board, Frederick T. Gates, 

 Chairman. Report of the Secretary, Wallace Buttrick, 1914- 

 1915. Pp. xi, 82. New York, 1916 (61 Broadway).— The Rocke- 

 feller fund in the hands of the General Education Board amounts 

 to some $34,000,000, from the income of which appropriations 

 amounting to $1,577,000 were made in the year ending June 30, 

 1915. Eight colleges and universities are mentioned in the 

 list as having received the greater part of this sum, namely, 

 $1,275,000, these appropriations being towards the maximum sum 

 of $5,200,000, to be raised by them. Other important measures 

 discussed, towards which the funds of the Board are being used, 

 include clinical instruction on the " full time plan," the education 

 in the southern states, public education in Maryland (see above), 

 etc. 



4. Napier Tercentenary Memorial Volume. Edited by Car- 

 gill Gilstost Knott. Pp. xi, 441, with illustrations, including 

 15 plates. London, 1915 (Published for the Royal Society of 

 Edinburgh by Longmans, Green and Company). —The three hun- 

 dredth anniversary of the invention of logarithms was celebrated 

 in Edinburgh, July 24-27, 1914. Delegates were present from 

 universities, observatories and learned societies in all parts of the 

 world. Addresses were given and papers were read dealing with 

 the life and work of John Napier, with the influence of his great 

 discovery upon the progress of science, and with the history of 

 the theory and art of calculation as it developed in the years 

 which followed the publication of his Mirifici Logarithmorum 

 Canonis Descriptio. There was also a most interesting exhibition 

 of rare mathematical books and of calculating machines both 

 ancient and modern — from abaci and sets of " Napier's Bones " 

 to the most recent devices for mechanical computation, some of 

 them of surprising complexity and ingenuity. In addition to the 

 scientific attractions of the Congress, a number of social gather- 

 ings added much to the pleasure and interest of the occasion ; 

 among these was an evening reception by the Lord Provost and 

 Magistrates of Edinburgh, and a garden party at Merchiston 



