112 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXI. No. 525. 



the iniinber of officers gives the results as 

 shown in the last vertical column of the table 

 appended. The figures in the second and 

 third columns are transcribed from the article 

 referred to above. 



Institution. 



No. of 

 Students. 



No. of 

 Officers. 



No. of 

 Students 

 to One 

 Officer. 





3,130 



330 



9.48 





2,218 



184 



12.54 



iIa 1 n Til ni 51 



4,056 



551 



7.36 



Cornell 



3,364 



451 



7.45 



Harvard 



4,516 



534 



8.45 



Illinois 



3,233 



365 



8.85 



Indiana 



882 



72 



12.25 



Johns Hopkins 



740 



156 



4.74 



Leland Stanford Jr... 



1,420 



130 



10.92 



Michigan 



3,667 



270 



13.58 



Minnesota 



3,671 



197 



18.63 





1.536 



88 



17.45 





2,414 



173 



13.95 





2,806 



346 



8.10 



Ohio State 



1,723 



143 



12.04 



Pennsj'lvania 



2,940 



330 



8.90 





1,385 



114 



12.14 





2,419 



201 



12.03 



Virfjinia 



691 



45 



15.35 



Wisconsin 



2,668 



243 



10.97 



Yale 



2,995 



330 



9.07 



William B. Schober. 



LEHKni Univeesitv, 

 .Jainiary 5, 1905. 



SCHOOLS OF TECHNOLOGY AND THE UNIVERSITY. 



To THE Editor of Science: In connection 

 with the proposed combination of the Massa- 

 chusetts Institute of Technology with Har- 

 vard University, the following authoritative 

 statement of foreign opinion (translated from 

 Zcit-schrifi des Vereincs deutscher Ingenieure 

 of Septcmbor 24, 1904) is of interest: 



At a iiH'ctinf; of the Union of German Engineers, 

 held at .Munich Septcmher 12, with the partici- 

 pation of thirty eminent representatives of tech- 

 nological schools and universities, as well as of 

 other scliools and of industries, the following reso- 

 lutions were adopted: 



1. It is not advisahle, so far as can he foreseen, 

 to attempt to meet the need of new technological 

 schools l)y the addition of iechnological faculties 

 to universities, hut rather hy the estahlishment 

 of independent institutions; for the technological 

 schools would he hindered in their independent 

 development hy attaching them to universities. 

 This separation should not, however, impede the 



welcome development of intellectual good will 

 between the two institutions. The attachment to 

 universities would also in no way involve eco- 

 nomies of consequence. 



2. The Union of German Engineers stands now, 

 as before, by its expression of 1886, as follows: 

 " We declare that the German engineers have the 

 same needs and will be subjected to the same 

 judgment as to their general culture as the repre- 

 sentatives of other professions based on higher 

 scientific education." In this view we rejoice 

 as the conviction more and more gains ground that 

 a considerably greater significance is to be at- 

 tributed than before to mathematical and natural 

 science as a means of culture. Knowledge of these 

 branches is becoming more and more an indispen- 

 sable constituent of general education. The pre- 

 dominantly linguistic education now received by 

 the majority of our gymnasium graduates does 

 not satisfy the demands which must be made on 

 the leading classes of our people, in particular, 

 in respect to the increasing significance of eco- 

 nomic questions. 



Tech Graduate. 



SPECIAL ARTICLES. 



PROPOSED international PHONETIC CONFERENCE 

 TO ADOPT A UNIVERSAL ALPHABET.* 



I WISH to call your attention to a circular 

 recently issued by Boston University, inviting 

 opinions on the proposal to hold an interna- 

 tional conference for the purpose of adopting 

 a universal alphabet. In the Roman alphabet 

 we already have a practically universal alpha- 

 bet. A comparatively slight effort will suffice 

 to make it perfect and quite universal. Who- 

 ever has looked into the subject knows that it 

 is perfectly practicable to introduce such 

 modifications in the Roman alphabet as to 

 make it perfectly phonetic and yet leave the 

 spelling in such condition that it shall be 

 readily legible to people who know only the 

 Roman alphabet in its present form. 



I need not dilate on the advantages to be ex- 

 pected from the use of an alphabet which would 

 enable every child to read as soon as it knew 

 the letters, and which would, furthermore, 

 enable any one to pronounce foreign languages 

 correctly at a glance, because their spelling, 



* Read before the Comparative Philology Sec- 

 tion of the Language Group of the Congress of 

 Arts and Science at St. Louis, September 21, 1904, 



