270 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[October 1, 1870. 
§ mttop jof Srimtiftc Bmttm. 
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOE THE 
PROMOTION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. 
Meeting at Newcastle-on-Tyne. 
The Fourteenth Annual Meeting of the Social Science 
Congress was commenced at Newcastle-on-Tyne on Wed¬ 
nesday, Sept. 21, by a special service, at St. Nicholas 
Church, when a sermon was preached by the Rev. Canon 
Norris. 
In the evening the Inaugural Address of the Presi¬ 
dent, his Grace the Duke of Northumberland, was de¬ 
livered in the New Town Hall to a very large assembly. 
On Thursday the business of the Congress was com¬ 
menced with affaddress by Mr. G. W. Hastings, the Chair¬ 
man of Council,“[who said that in reviewing, according to 
annual custom, the work of the Association, the first 
place must be given to education, in respect of which the 
last session of Parliament had done so much to realize 
the hopes expressed at previous congresses. During the 
session the Education Committee had framed a report, 
many suggestions in which had been adopted by Govern¬ 
ment ; and others which had been set aside would ulti¬ 
mately be demanded by public opinion. It recommended 
that public instruction should be placed under a minister 
of education responsible to Parliament, and until this 
was done the work of the department will never be car¬ 
ried on in the most efficient manner. Dr. Lankester and 
others have repeatedly urged the necessity for instruction 
in elementary physiology and the laws of health. Canon 
Kingsley had pleaded that physical science, and the use 
of the senses on objects immediately surrounding us, 
ought to form part of ordinary instruction. These sug¬ 
gestions are good, but practically of little avail unless we 
can improve the character of the teaching. Then we 
shall be prepared to take the serious step of deciding 
what was to be taught. At the bottom of the whole 
matter of improved school teaching there lies the ques¬ 
tion of the amalgamation of schools. At present the in¬ 
spectors’ return show a higher average of efficiency in 
large schools than small. It is better to have one school 
of 300 children than six of 50 each. The number of 
classes in the larger need scarcely be greater than in the 
smaller; but while the master in the small school will only 
be the [superintendent of inefficient pupil-teachers, the 
large school will support an efficient master and a well- 
paid staff of assistants. The large-school system will do 
much to lift the profession of teaching from the dead 
dreary level which it now occupies, and give the country 
the services of a body of teachers made doubly efficient 
by the prospect of promotion. He advocated also the 
giving of scholarships and exhibitions in the national 
schools to carry the deserving boy into the secondary 
schools, and to let him start in the upward race with the 
self-respect of independence. He stated the object to be 
to enable any boy or girl, with the requisite ability and 
perseverance, to work his or her way from the parish 
school, or even the workhouse school, to the grammar 
school and the universities. 
At the conclusion of the address the various sections 
assembled in their respective rooms to consider the ques¬ 
tions coming before them. In the Education section, 
papers on the Amalgamation of Schools were read by 
Mr. Bourne and Mr. Imeson; and in the Health section 
there were papers on the methods of disposing of 
sewage and excreta, with a prolonged discussion. The 
usual Ladies’ Conference assembled under the presidency 
of Lady Bowring. In the evening, Sir William Arm¬ 
strong entertained a large number of the members of the 
Association at Jesmond Dene, and after the dinner there 
was a soiree in the Exchange Art Gallery. 
On. Friday the special question in the Education sec¬ 
tion was “By what means can a direct connection be 
established between the elementary and secondary schools 
and the universities ?” Several papers were read on the 
subject, and in the discussion which followed, Mr. Pears, 
the General Secretary of the Association, said that Tas¬ 
mania, with a population of 80,000, gave two scholar¬ 
ships to any British university the winners might select, 
the value of each scholarship being £200 a year for four 
years. According to the report of the Endowed Schools 
Commission, the money required for establishing a direct 
connection between the schools and the universities was 
already in existence, and he protested against the appli¬ 
cation of that money in simply providing education for the 
middle or upper classes. He suggested the continuation 
of the fee paid in the primary schools, but that every boy 
on reaching a certain standard—say, the seventh—should 
have the opportunity of passing for the same fee to the 
secondary or endowed school. After passing the neces¬ 
sary examination there, he should have the privilege of 
free admission to the university. 
At the close of the discussion, Mr. R. S. Watson read 
a paper on the “Best Method of providing Higher Edu¬ 
cation in Boroughs.” He pointed out that there is a 
great demand and need in large towns for opportunities 
of higher education. Most boys leave school at 16, and 
their education is supposed to finish, where it should, in 
any high sense, be beginning. If they go on with it 
afterwards, they do so alone and at great disadvantage. 
In all large towns professors should be provided, with 
sufficient salaries to admit of the class fees being very 
low, and classes for both sexes should be held in the 
evening, where those engaged throughout the day might 
carry out their studies in a systematic manner without 
reference to their position in life. A fund from which 
retaining fees could be paid, a greater number of highly 
trained teachers, and a connection with some recognized 
teaching body were required. Every large town should 
have an institution like Owens College, at Manchester. 
To the old universities, as the heads of education in this 
country, he looked for help in this matter. College fel¬ 
lowships might be converted into country lectureships, or 
the universities or individual colleges might contribute 
an annual sum towards the salaries of the professors, the 
borough to be benefited contributing an equal amount, 
and the professors being appointed by the university or 
college. 
In the Health Department, Mr. Phillips Bevan, editor 
of the Food Journal , read a paper on “ The Legislation to 
prevent Adulteration of Food and Drink.” He said, 
that although it is one of our most important social ques¬ 
tions, the apathy and ignorance of the public on the sub¬ 
ject of adulteration is astonishing. As each person thinks 
that all others are mortal except himself, so he imagines 
that adulteration affects any class but his own; and 
although we acknowledge its prevalence, and cry shame 
when we read of any particularly bad case, the sensation 
is but momentary, and we go on our way as before. 
What is adulteration, and what does it mean ? It means 
the lowering of the physique of the nation, the poisoning 
of the people, the deterioration of our constitution; and, 
morally, a fraud practised by the seller on the buyer, a 
cheating, to which we have become so callous that it has 
hardened our conscience for honesty in other and bigger 
things. The great difficulty in dealing with it is that 
the Government is so slow to move, and even men in 
high places practically defend it by declaring that it is 
not so bad as it might be, that the buyer must look to 
himself, and so on. It is also a very common argument 
that people bring adulteration on themselves by buying 
such very cheap articles—so cheap that they cannot be 
good for the money. But they do so in ignorance, and 
if the seller were compelled to label his goods with the 
names of the real ingredients, such as ‘ best butter mixed 
with starch, mashed potatoes, and horse-bone oil; ’ ‘ coffee, 
with bread-crumbs and sand;’ ‘tea, with iron-filings;’ 
‘sugar, with chromate of lead;’ ‘beer, with salt and 
cocculus indicus,’ it is not the least likely that their 
cheapness would tempt the buyer; and if a certainty of 
