January 13, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



79 



through Dr. Osier, for a separate dispensary 

 for tuberculous patients. 



Karlsruhe has followed the example of 

 Charlottenburg in establishing a tuberculosis 

 museum. Arrangements are being made by 

 which parties of working people will be en- 

 abled to visit the museum from all parts of 

 the country. 



We learn from The British Medical Journal 

 that a private citizen has placed in the hands 

 of the government of the Grand Duchy of 

 Baden a mm of $60,000 towards the founda- 

 tion at Heidelberg of an institute for the 

 study of cancer. The government has given 

 a site for the purpose in the immediate neigh- 

 borhood of the University Hospital, and has 

 promised a grant for the maintenance of the 

 institute. 



The completed object-glass of eighteen 

 inches clear aperture for the new observatory 

 was formally delivered to the trustees of Am- 

 herst College on December 31 by Mr. C. A. 

 R. Lundin, the maker and optical expert, rep- 

 resenting the firm of Alvan Clark and Sons. 

 The objective was brought to Amherst by Pro- 

 fessor Todd and deposited in the college vault 

 for safe keeping till the mounting is ready to 

 be erected in the spring. The flint and crown 

 disks were made by Mantois, of Paris, and 

 were pronounced by Alvan Clark the finest 

 pair of disks ever received in his shops. The 

 optical work upon them, figuring, correcting 

 and polishing, during the past two years, fully 

 maintains the highest standard of excellence 

 set by this firm in the forty-inch Yerkes tele- 

 scope, the thirty-six-inch Lick telescope, the 

 thirty-inch Russian object-glass, the twenty- 

 six-inch at Princeton, and numerous others. 



A Pacific Coast Biological Society was es- 

 tablished at a meeting held in San Francisco 

 on December 10. Its membership includes 

 those who are carrying on research in zoology, 

 paleontology, anatomy, physiology, psychology 

 and botany. Meetings will be held four times 

 a year. At the first meeting Dr. Jacques 

 Loeb gave an address on heliotropism in ani- 

 mals. Professor H. Heath, of the Stanford 

 University department of zoology, wa-s elected 

 president, and Professor W. J. V. Osterhout, 



of the department of botany at the University 

 of California, secretary-treasurer. 



A MATHEMATICAL section of the California 

 Teachers' Association was organized on De- 

 cember 26, 1904, at San Jose. Professor G. 

 A. Miller, Stanford University, was elected 

 president, and Mr. J. P. Smith, Campbell 

 High School, secretary. The main object of 

 the association is to arouse more interest in 

 mathematical pedagogy by means of separate 

 meetings for the discussion of recent mathe- 

 matical movements. 



The American Breeders' Association will 

 hold its annual meeting at Champaign, Illi- 

 nois on February 1, 2 and 3. Special sessions 

 will be devoted to the following subjects : 

 specific methods of breeding corn, wheat, 

 apples and other plants ; methods of improving 

 short horns, dairy cattle and other breeds of 

 live stock, breeding disease-resisting plants, 

 Mendel's law, in-and-in breeding. 



Mr. Francis Darwin has written the follow- 

 ing letter to the London Times: 



In an article on ' Greek at Oxford.' from a 

 correspondent in The Times of December 27 occurs 

 the remark ' It will be remembered also that 

 Darwin regretted not having learnt Greek.' 



I am at a loss to know on what authority tills 

 statement rests. If Darwin had any regrets on 

 the subject of Greek it was when he found that 

 in the two years intervening between leaving 

 school and going up to Cambridge he had almost 

 forgotten his classics, and had to begin again an 

 uncongenial task in order to get a degree. 



Darwin says of his education at Shrewsbury 

 School: "Nothing could have been worse for 

 the development of my mind than Dr. Butler's 

 school, as it was strictly classical, nothing else 

 being taught, except a little ancient geography 

 and history" ('Life and Letters,' I., 31). He 

 was, in fact, a victim of that ' premature speciali- 

 zation ' which is generally referred to in a some- 

 what one-sided spirit, and from which the public 

 schoolboy is not yet freed. 



If the name of Charles Darwin is to be brought 

 into this controversy it must not be used for com- 

 pulsory Greek, but against it. In 1867 he wrote 

 to Farrar, ' I am one of the root and branch men, 

 and would leave classics to be learnt by those 

 alone who have sufficient zeal and the high taste 

 requisite for their appreciation' ('More Letters 

 of Charles Darwin,' IL, 441). 



