October 23, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



Trithout difficulty, and those most interested in 

 the route by Hudson Bay to Europe for the wheat 

 of INIanitoba, are enthusiastic in then* assertions 

 that this proves the practicability of the route. A 

 sober second thought, however, would indicate 

 that, as far as yet made public, absolutely nothing 

 new has been learned on the voyage of the Alert. 

 The character of the navigation of Hudson Bay, 

 a great shoal inlet, with its bottom dotted with 

 stupendous bowlders often rising nearly to the 

 surface ; with no good port in the southwest, 

 where, at the best anchorage, the vessel lies eight 

 or nine miles from what must be the shipping 

 point, permanent piers of any length being out of 

 the question, owing to the movements of the ice ; 

 a strictly arctic climate, constant mirage, and no 

 charts of any value : these incidents of the plan 

 do not seem to be affected by anything done on 

 the voyage as far as yet known. 



USE AND ABUSE OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



Every country thinks, doubtless, when it looks 

 at the peculiar way in which things are done in 

 other countiies, that it could devise a method of 

 much more dignity and wisdom for carrying out 

 its purposes. We may certainly be excused for 

 thinking that the plans by which gi-eat men are 

 selected in both England and France might be im- 

 proved upon. The familiar story of the candidate 

 for the fortieth arm-chair of the French academy 

 going about and sohciting the votes of thirty-nine 

 immortals, never fails to give one an unpleasant 

 shock at every fresh hearing. Even our presiden- 

 tial candidates are considered to be deficient in 

 dignity when they make public speeches in their 

 own behalf, and the hterary man is supposed to be 

 a man of much more delicate feeling than any poli- 

 tician. Nor is the English way of granting admis- 

 sion into the Royal society at all to be preferred ; 

 to hold an actual competitive examination, on the 

 result of which a certain number of successful 

 candidates are annually chosen, is not to show 

 deference to the feelings of the candidate any 

 more than the French have done. 



There is a simple principle that should guide the 

 bestowal of honors, — it is that they should be given 

 and not sought. In private life a man is not ex- 

 pected to press his merits or his company upon 

 his friends. We should consider it a barbarous 

 social etiquette in which a person was required to 

 call upon all his acquaintances and beg to be in- 

 vited to their choicest dinners. If rewards are to 



be given at aU for distinction in science or in 

 letters, they should be given freely, and not be 

 made bitter by conditions to which a gentlem.an 

 has never before been obliged to submit. It may 

 be a difficult matter to make the proper choice, 

 but, at least, it should be made without the assist- 

 ance of the candidate himself. 



The English method has the additional disad- 

 vantage that it does not secure the men whom it 

 is most desirable to honor. During the school-boy 

 period, the distinction between different individu- 

 als is a distinction of learning, and an examination 

 is not unfitted to discover the boy who deserves 

 reward. But learning is not the quahty which a 

 state needs to make it great. Casaubons are not 

 the kind of men who have built up EngHsh 

 science. The qualities which ought to be encour- 

 aged, and which it should be a nation's dehght to 

 honor, are qualities too subtle to be detected by a 

 competitive examination. That is a way of deal- 

 ing out honors wMch, as Professor Chrystal has 

 just said before the British association, belongs to 

 the pupillary age both of men and of nations. 



In our own national academy, whose tender age 

 forbids as yet the lustre that clings to the ancient 

 institutions of the European capitals, the only 

 knowledge a man may have that he is a candidate 

 for election is through the imprudence of his 

 friends among the academicians, — an imprudence 

 which is unhappily too common. Indeed it is 

 becommg evident to many that the candidate 

 active in pushing his own claims, in however 

 secret a manner, is pro tanto lessening his chances 

 of admission. And this is as it should be ; merit in 

 the eyes of others should be the single test. 



THE RECENT EDUCATIONAL MEETING IN 

 BOSTON, 



The educational conference, which met on Friday 

 and Saturday, Oct. 16 and 17, at the Boston Latin 

 school, was one of the most notable ever held in 

 America, by reason of the representative character 

 of the delegates, the nature of the topics discussed, 

 and the possible effect upon our liigher education 

 of the movement there maugurated. 



The teachers of the preparatory schools have for 

 some time been conscious of certam difficulties 

 arising from the lack of a proper luiderstand- 

 ing on their part of what the colleges reaUy desii*e 

 of them, and particularly as regai'ds the requisi- 

 tions for admission to college, in the determination 

 of which, they, however interested parties, have 

 never been recognized as having a voice. Addi- 



