Bruce."

CAPTAIN STANLEY FLOWER, who was in England for a short time during the summer, has returned to his post at the Zoological Gardens, Giza, Egypt. He writes that the three specimens of the curious " shoe-bill" or "whaleheaded stork" (Balaeniceps rex) received from the White Nile in 1902 are still in good health and condition in the Giza gardens. No living example of this rare bird has reached England since the arrival of Mr. Petherick's original specimens in 1860.

MR. W. EAGLE CLARKE, of the Museum of Science and Art at Edinburgh, a well-known authority on the migration of birds, passed a month during the migratory season in September and October last on board the lightship on the "Kentish Knock," which is situated in mid-sea off the mouth of the Thames, about twenty miles from land. Mr. Clarke has made a series of valuable observations on the various birds which passed by the lightship during this period, and has obtained many specimens which were killed by flying against the lantern. A full account of Mr. Clarke's experiences will be published in the next number of the Ibis.

It is understood that the authorities of the British Museum (Natural History) and the director of the Geological Survey of Egypt have agreed to the preparation of a joint report on the wonderful discoveries of fossil animals recently made in the Fayûm. Dr. Andrews will proceed

to Egypt early next year to examine and catalogue the specimens in the Geological Museum at Cairo, but will not attempt to make further collections. A fine example of the skull of the horned Arsinoitherium (perhaps the most remarkable of all these discoveries) is now exhibited in the central hall of the Museum at South Kensington.

AMONG the contents of the second part of the Bergen Museum Aarbog for 1903 is a paper by Mr. H. Broch on NO.. 1782, vol. 69]

183

the hydroid polyps collected during the cruises of the exploring vessel Michael Sars in the North Sea from 1900 to 1902. Several new forms are named and described.

MR. RALPH S. LILLIE has found (Amer. Journ. of Physiology, viii., No. 4) that isolated cells and cell-nuclei suspended in cane-sugar solution through which an electric current is passed migrate in some cases with the negative, in others with the positive, stream. The majority of such structures migrate with the negative stream, and this tendency is especially strong in free nuclei and structures consisting chiefly of nuclear matter. cytoplasm, on the other hand, tend to move with the positive Cells with voluminous

stream.

THE violets of Philadelphia afford to Mr. W. Stone the text for an article on racial variation in animals and plants, which appears in the October issue of the Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy. In the course of this article the author directs attention to the growing practice among American zoologists of discarding the use of trinomials, and classing as a species every distinct animal form, no matter how slightly differentiated. This usage, it is urged, receives support from the methods of botanical classification. Where is all this splitting going to end? is the question which naturally arises in the minds of old-fashioned zoologists.

THE December number of the Popular Science Monthly contains two articles on biological subjects, the one, by Prof. T. H. Morgan, dealing with recent theories in regard to the determination of sex, and the other, by Dr. D. S. Jordan, on the salmon and salmon-streams of Alaska. Dr. Jordan recognises five species of Pacific salmon of the genus Oncorhynchus from these rivers, as well as three kinds of trout (inclusive of the now well-known rainbow-trout), and two other species belonging to other genera. As regards the salmon-tinning industry, the rivers of Alaska may be divided into three groups, king-salmon, red salmon, and humpbacked salmon streams. Those of the first class are the most important, but even these are less valuable than the corresponding rivers of British Columbia, owing to the fact that, from the shorter run, the fishes are nearer the spawning season when they enter, a larger proportion of them having white flesh in June than is the case with their Columbian brethren in August.

"THE GEOLOGY OF WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS," by Messrs. J. H. Perry and B. K. Emerson, has been issued by the Worcester Natural History Society (Worcester, Mass., 1903). It is a well illustrated work descriptive of the rocks and fossils of the county, and is written for those who have no technical knowledge of the subject. interest is mainly petrological and mineralogical.

The

Mr.

the medicinal properties and uses of the waters. Blatchley deals also with the gold and diamonds of the State. Gold is widely disseminated in the Glacial Drift, but the occurrence of diamonds, which have been found while panning gold, is only of scientific interest. Mr. G. H. Ashley writes on the Lower Carboniferous area of southern Indiana, and directs attention to the economic products of the rocks, which comprise materials for good building stone, for the manufacture of Portland cement, and glass sands. There are also articles on the Orthoptera and Mollusca, and reports on the petroleum industry.

Ar the present time, when the British Cotton-growing Association is fostering the experiments which are being made to grow cotton in various parts of British Africa and in some of the West Indian islands, an account by the principal of the School of Agriculture in Cairo of the impressions gained during a visit to the cotton-growing States in America is particularly opportune. From a consideration of the principal characters of different cottons, and of the exclusive position which is held by Egyptian and South Sea island cotton, the writer shows that it is a matter of considerable importance to improve the quality as far as possible. by taking advantage of selection and hybridisation. Practical suggestions are made with regard to the cultivation on the subjects of soil, planting, maturation of the seed, and rotation of crops.

DR. DIXON has added to his contributions towards the elucidation of the mode of ascent of water in tall trees by suggesting a transpiration model, which is described in the Scientific Proceedings of the Royal Dublin Society. Over the top of a thistle funnel are fixed two parchment diaphragms converted into semipermeable membranes by soaking first in gelatin and then in tannin. These are arranged so as to leave a small space in which sugar is placed before closing up. A continuous column of water is established from the membranes through the funnel and connections, to a supply of water below. The water enters the artificial cell, fills it, and finally water and sugar soak through the outer membrane. The vapour tension of the water below the lower membrane is greater than that of the liquid in the cell, and the latter is greater than the vapour tension of the liquid above the upper membrane, so that a flow of water takes place from the reservoir upwards.

THE Transvaal Agricultural Journal, which is issued quarterly, and has now reached its fifth number, serves to show with how much energy the Agricultural Department of the new colony, under the direction of Mr. F. B. Smith, is attacking the many problems of farming in that country. A more difficult task cannot well be imagined; the disasters of the war, which has denuded the country of its stock, have been accompanied by repeated attacks of epizootic diseases of all kinds, to which new importations of cattle succumb at once; at the same time the greatest drought since 1862 has occurred, and even Kafir labour has been forced up to a price prohibitive to the farmer. The numbers of the Journal bear evidence of the diversity and virulence of the diseases of stock that prevail; fortunately they show also that the Agricultural Department is busy with investigations on the origin of the diseases and the best preventive measures against them. The most dreaded diseases seem to be "red water" and the more recently discovered "Rhodesian red water or "African coast fever," both of which are propagated by ticks as an intermediate host, but though animals get immunised or "salted" against the former, the latter seems invariably fatal.

MESSRS. MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., have published part v. of "A School Geometry," by Messrs. H. S. Hall and F. H. Stevens. This section contains the substance of Euclid Book vi., with additional theorems and examples.

MESSRS. DAWBARN AND WARD, LTD., have added to their series of useful little "Rural Handbooks' a volume by Mr. H. Francklin on incubating and rearing utility fowls. The principles on which incubators and rearers are constructed are explained, and the advantages of artificial as compared with natural incubation are made clear.

A COPY of the sixth edition of Strasburger's "Lehrbuch der Botanik" has been received from the publisher, Herr Gustav Fischer, Jena. The work has been completely revised, and many sections have been altered in order to adapt them to the present state of knowledge, especially in connection with plant physiology and morphology.

WE have received the year-book of meteorological observations at the station of the First Order belonging to the Magdeburg Journal for the year 1900. This is the twentieth volume of the series, and contains, in addition to observations and results recorded in accordance with the

As

international scheme, complete hourly readings and means, observations of earth temperature, evaporation, &c. regards tabular statements of the results of a well equipped observatory, nothing better could be desired. The autographic registrations of a Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder have been photochemically reproduced; the cards ranged side by side have a very neat appearance, and give a clear view of the amount of bright sunshine in the different months. During the seven months of April to October there were only thirteen sunless days.

THE Christmas number of Photography (London: Iliffe and Sons, Ltd., price is.) is a production which will be heartily welcomed by those interested in the artistic side of photography. No pains seem to have been spared to render the book high class in every respect, and the thirty or more full-page and smaller half-tone reproductions from photographs printed on glazed art paper, and the letterpress and line drawings on rough antique paper, are sufficient proof of this statement. The contents of the letterpress consist of six articles on topics of widely different interest. Mr. F. H. Evans, on "The Characteristic Use of the Hands in Portraiture," gives some valuable hints on the conspicuous part played by the hands of sitters, and illustrates his remarks by photographs taken by himself.

THE report of the ninth meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Hobart, Tasmania, in 1902, has now been published. The volume is edited by Mr. Alex. Morton, the secretary of the Royal Society of Tasmania, and runs to nearly nine hundred pages. The contents of the report, including as they do detailed accounts of the ten sections into which for working purposes the Association is divided, and reports of eight research committees, show conclusively that the Australasian men of science are following very successfully the example set by the parent association. The presi

dential address for 1902, by Captain F. W. Hutton, F.R.S., dealt with evolution and its teaching. We have also received a copy of the Walker memorial volume published by the Royal Society of Tasmania, and containing the papers on early Tasmania read before the Society during the years 1888-1899 by the late Mr. J. B. Walker, vicechancellor of the Tasmanian University.

The

THE report of the U.S. National Museum for the year ending June 30, 1901, has just reached us from the Smithsonian Institution. Part i. of the volume (of 452 pages) contains the report of the assistant secretary and the reports of three head curators, a list of accessions to the museum, and a bibliography of the publications of the museum. second part will, however, prove of more general interest, consisting as it does of five lavishly illustrated articles. These contributions are, first, a report describing the exhibit of the U.S. National Museum at the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo in 1901, by Messrs. F. W. True, W. H. Holmes, and G. P. Merrill. This report is illustrated by seventy-two full-page plates, which it would be difficult to improve. Mr. W. H. Holmes also describes the flint implements and fossil remains from a sulphur spring at Afton, Indian Territory, this article being accompanied by twenty-six plates; and the same author deals with the classification and arrangement of the exhibits of an anthropological museum. Mr. Walter Hough discusses archæological field work in N.E. Arizona, and gives an account of the Museum-Gates Expedition in 1901, and with this monograph there are 101 plates, some of which are beautifully coloured. The last contribution is by Mr. J. B. Steere, and is a narrative of a visit to Indian tribes of the Purus river, Brazil.

a

A QUANTITATIVE study by Dr. Paul von Schroeder (described in the Zeitschrift für physikalische Chemie) of the setting and swelling of gelatin has led to some interesting observations, which not only throw light on the phenomena of gelatinisation, but also form an important addition to our knowledge of reversible chemical changes. It appears that gelatin solutions undergo two types of change, a non-reversible hydrolysis by which the setting power of the solution is permanently impaired, and a reversible change as the result of which the jelly melts when heated and slowly solidifies when cooled. The setting power of a solution is accurately indicated by its viscosity. If after rapidly cooling from 100° the viscosity is measured at 25°, low value is obtained which gradually increases until, if the decomposition of the gelatin has not proceeded too far, it culminates in the setting of the whole mass. By measuring the increment of viscosity during one hour it is possible to predict whether the solution will set in the course of the next twenty-four hours. The reverse process by which the gelatin swells and then dissolves in water presents similar points of interest. Gelatin saturated with water has a higher vapour-pressure than water itself, and loses weight in a saturated atmosphere; the difference of vapour-pressure is, however, very minute, and may be compared with that which exists between drops of different sizes, and causes the larger drops of a fog to grow at the expense of the smaller particles.

Ar a meeting of the Institution of Civil Engineers on December 15 several aspects of the important question of water supply were discussed. Prof. J. Campbell Brown read a paper on deposits in pipes and other channels conveying potable water. Analyses were given of incrustations on iron pipes, showing that these incrustations were due to oxidation of the iron of the pipes, whether wide

spread or in nodules, and that they were not limited to acid waters, but were common to acid, alkaline, and neutral waters. Investigations were recorded showing that slimy deposits on the inner surface of pipes, &c., were produced by gelatinous and filamentous iron-organisms which grew and extracted iron from the water, and died at one end while they grew at the other. Solid rock particles were entangled in this slime, and binoxide of manganese was deposited by chemical action, and this also was entangled in the mass of the gelatinous iron-organisms. Messrs. Osbert Chadwick and Bertram Blount introduced the subject of the purification of water highly charged with vegetable matter, with special reference to the effect of aëration. They showed that the purification of tropical waters was very difficult; they had found that treatment with iron was efficacious, but the treatment must be more thorough than with ordinary water-supplies. The character of these waters charged with vegetable matters rendered the removal of the iron difficult. Systematic aëration, so as to ensure an abundant supply of oxygen, was requisite. An apparatus had been devised in which the water was caused to flow through perforated plates, emerging in streams of small diameter and exposing so large a surface per unit volume of liquid that rapid absorption of oxygen from the air was made certain.

THE additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the past week include two Malabar Mynahs (Poliopsar malabaricus) from India, presented by Mr. A. F. Vine; two South Albemarle Tortoises (Testudo vicina) from the Albemarle Islands, presented by the Captain and Officers of H.M.S. Amphion; two Hybrid Parrakeets (between Palaeornis eximius and Psephotus haematonotus), four Limbless Lizards (Pygopus lepidopus) from Australia, deposited.

OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN.

RADIAL VELOCITIES OF B AURIGE.-M. G. A. Tikhoff, of the Pulkowa Observatory, has recently concluded a research on the relative velocities of the spectroscopic binary B Auriga, and publishes his results in No. 3916 of the Astronomische Nachrichten.

The forty-one plates on which the results are based were obtained by M. Belopolsky, nineteen during the early part of 1902 with a Rutherford spectroscope, and twenty-two at the end of 1902 and the beginning of 1903 with a new Töpfer three-prism spectrograph. The relative velocities of the components are given in a table, which also shows the exact time at which the plates were taken and the interval since the last conjunction, and they show a maximum of 228 km. per second, on March 24, 1902, to

zero.

The curve obtained on plotting these results gave 3d. 23h. 30.4m. as the period, and it also indicates that the system is not only a binary one, as announced by Prof. Pickering in 1890, but is made up of more than two bodies. This is confirmed by the spectrogram obtained on January 21, 1903, in which the line Hy is made up of four components, indicating the existence of four separate bodies with different velocities.

M. Tikhoff has arrived at the conclusion that the system is made up of two pairs, each pair consisting of a star giving strong lines and another giving weak lines, and each element making a complete revolution about the centre of gravity of its pair in 19.1 hours. The ratio of the masses of the two groups is near unity, and the proper motion of the whole system as deduced from the magnesium lines at ▲ 4481 and λ 4352 is 16 km. per second. The epoch of conjunction may be taken as February, 1903, 3d. 10h. (Pulkowa M.T.).

THE "DOUBLING " OF THE MARTIAN CANALS.-In discussing the instrumentality of "contrast in producing the duplicated appearance of Martian canals, M. E. M.

saw

seas, narrower

Antoniadi directs attention to some experiments made by him which showed that when single, elliptical, dark spots were examined for a long unbroken period they appeared to develop a duplication similar to that observed in Martian phenomena. He also states that Schiaparelli repeatedly the well-defined dark seas with lighter interiors, and when the such as the Mare Cimmerium, Lacus Niliacus, and Sinus Sabæus were observed steadily for a long time, they manifested a tendency to beget islands which exactly resembled in shape the areas in which they appeared. M. Antoniadi directs attention to the fact that these islands always appeared to be surrounded by "dark canals," and he has therefore arrived at the conclusion that their appearance, and the apparent gemination" of the canals, are simply results of the physiological effects of " contrast (Astronomische

Nachrichten, No. 3916).

November 15, 9h. 50m. to 17h. 50m., 187 meteors were observed from the following radiants :-a=150°, d=+22°; a=153°, d=+21°; a=152°, d=+24°•

November 16, thirty-three meteors observed, chiefly from a radiant situated at a = 150°, 8=+17°.

This shower appeared to attain its maximum between 15h. and 16h. on November 15. The general colour of the meteors was red, their velocities moderately swift, and their mean brightness equivalent to the fourth magnitude.

Bielids.-A watch was kept for this shower on the evenings of November 22, 23 and 24, but no meteors were seen on November 22, possibly because the sky was very hazy.

From 7h. 46m. to 16h. on November 23, fourteen meteors were seen, chiefly emanating from a radiant situated at a=23°, d=+43°. On November 24 eleven meteors were observed, and these indicated the existence of two radiants, one at a=26°, 8=+46°, and the other at a=26°, d=+43°.

In general the Bielids were red in colour and equivalent in brightness to the fifth magnitude stars; they moved so swiftly that their very short paths were hardly visible (Comptes rendus, December 7).

THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN. THE adequate provision of secondary and higher educa

tion for English girls and women is to be regarded as one of the accomplishments of the latter half of the nineteenth century. In 1850, for instance, the popular idea here and elsewhere was that women were intellectually incapable of benefiting by higher instruction. To quote Dr. Leslie Waggener, of the University of Texas, "it was seriously questioned whether the female' mind could untangle the intricacies of pure mathematics, could appreciate the abstruse speculations of metaphysics, or could follow, step by step, the inductions of a scientific investigation." Fifty years' experience has, however, demonstrated the complete fallacy of this preconception. Speaking at the Cambridge University Extension summer meeting in 1900, Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, principal of Newnham College, said of higher education for women, "I do not think its desirability is any longer seriously doubted by anyone who has looked into the facts, and whose opinion on the question is worth considering." Similarly, President Eliot, of Harvard College, in an address in 1896, referring to the university over which he presides, remarked, it is a quarter of a century since the college doors were opened to women. Since that time, where girls and boys have been educated together, it has become an historical fact that women have made rapid strides, and captured a greater number of honours in proportion to their number than men." So complete a change of opinion on a subject of such importance as the suitable education of the larger half of the human race deserves attention, and the steps in the

movement which has resulted in the recognition of the claims of women at most universities throughout the world, supply a profitable study for all students of educational problems. A comparison, too, of the present provision of university courses for women with their complete nonexistence in 1850 should serve to cheer those men of science and others who are endeavouring to improve our national education in other directions. It is gratifying, in beginning a brief historical summary of the growth of the movement to provide secondary and higher education for women, to be able to state that among the first efforts in this direction were those made in England. The absence of public secondary schools for girls in this country, and the impossibility of obtaining really educated governesses, were the causes which led the late F. D. Maurice and others to work with the Governesses' Benevolent Institution to improve matters, and the labours of these pioneers led to the establishment, in 1848, of Queen's College, London, the original object of which institution was to train women teachers. In the following year Bedford College, London, was founded, and so successful has it been that it is now one of two colleges for women which are constituent colleges of the reconstructed University of London. A good start having been made, the movement grew and ere long flourished greatly in several localities. The North London Collegiate School for Girls was established by Miss Frances Buss in 1850, and the Ladies' College at Cheltenham in 1853. The thorough education of the daughters of middle-class families had become sufficiently general in 1863 to convince the University of Cambridge of the advisability of at least trying the experiment of admitting girls to the local examinations conducted by them in various centres throughout the country, and in 1865 girls were formally admitted. Then came the Schools Inquiry Commission of 1864, which, after sitting for three years, reported at the end of 1867. Ladies were called upon by the Commission to give evidence as to the provision for the secondary education of girls, and, to quote Mrs. Henry Sidgwick again, "The assistant commissioners, who had examined and reported on the condition of secondary education in various districts, gave a deplorable account of the insufficiency of the girls' schools, and of the immense difficulty of finding any adequately-educated female teachers for them." In 1872, the National Union, under the presidency of Princess Louise, was started to reform girls' education. This association soon established the Girls' Public Day Schools Company, and at present, this company alone, has 34 schools, about 7000 pupils, and about 600 teachers of different grades.

This cursory glance at the history of the attempts made to supply English girls with secondary education is necessary, because the need created by the establishment of these schools for highly qualified women teachers directed attention to the necessity for the provision of higher educa tion at English colleges and universities, a need which had hitherto been completely ignored. The recognition of the claims of women to as much education as they desire has in England been brought about gradually, and it will be convenient to indicate the more important steps taken since the foundation of Queen's College, London, in 1848, and then to outline, as exactly as possible, the present state of things in other countries. It will simplify matters, too, to deal with different countries separately, and to take the universities of Great Britain and Ireland first, and in most detail.

GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

Special lectures for women were started in connection with the University of Cambridge in 1870. Girton College was incorporated at Cambridge in 1873, though it had been in existence at Hitchin since 1869, and from its inaugur ation had prepared its students for the examinations of Cambridge, where women were first informally examined for the previous examination in 1870, and for the tripos examination in 1872. Girton was designed to hold in relation to girls' schools and home training a position analogous to that occupied by the universities towards the public schools for boys." In 1871, a house of residence for women attending university lectures was opened in Cambridge, and this institution became known, in 1875, as Newnham Hall, and was constituted a coliege in 1880. In the same year as Newnham College was incorporated, the uni

versity appointed a syndicate to consider the question of conferring degrees on women, with the result that in 1881, though degrees were refused, formal admission for women to the previous and tripos examinations was granted. And up to the present time the privilege of receiving degrees is withheld, though women are admitted by courtesy to almost all lectures. A syndicate appointed in 1896 recommended that degrees be conferred by diploma without permitting admission to membership of the university, but the proposal was rejected by the Senate in 1897 by 1713 votes to 662. The concession of 1881 still regulates the admission of women to the examinations of the university. In order to be permitted to take the tripos examinations women must reside at Girton or Newnham, and admission to these colleges is only granted to students who have passed the previous or some other recognised examination. A class list of female students is published after the examinations, along with the list of members of the university; the method of arrangement is the same in both cases, and certificates are given to women stating the class or place in class attained in each examin

ation.

At Oxford, lectures and classes were started for women in 1873, and examinations were instituted for them two years later. An association for encouraging the education of women was formed in 1878, and is still in active existence. Through the secretary of the association women are admitted to nearly all the lectures given in Oxford, and the council of the association registers all women students. These students are either in residence at Somerville College (founded 1879), Lady Margaret Hall (1879), St. Hugh's Hall (1886), St. Hilda's Hall (1893), or belong to the Society of Home Students, comprising students who reside in private families and are supervised by the council of the association. In 1884, honour moderations and final honour schools of mathematics, natural science, and modern history were opened to women, and from time to time admission to the examinations of other schools was granted, but it was not until 1894 that they were free to present themselves for examination in all the subjects in which men may take the B.A. degree. Women are not eligible for degrees. Congregation rejected a proposal, in 1896, to admit women to degrees or to grant them diplomas recording their success in the final schools examinations. An important difference between Oxford and Cambridge is that at the former, university women are admitted to the pass as well as to the honour schools, and for either examination; an outside student is equally eligible with those who have studied and resided at Oxford.

As regards the extent to which women avail themselves of the facilities offered by the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford for their higher education, it may be said that, during the session 1901-2, Girton and Newnham together had 292 students, while in 1902 there were at Oxford 228 registered women students. The whole number of women students who took honours in the various triposes at Cambridge from 1881, the year in which they were opened to women, to 1900 was 1036, and of these 180 took honours in natural science, the numbers in mathematics being 250 and in classics 227.

women

The University of London, which received its first charter in 1836, was the first English university to recognise the claims of women. In 1867 the university was granted a supplementary charter, under which it was enabled to offer certain special certificates to women. In 1880 women were admitted to all the degrees, honours, and prizes which were at the disposal of the university, and in 1882 graduates were admitted as members of convocation. The University of Durham, by a supplementary charter granted in 1895, opened all its degrees except those in theology to women. Women are admitted to university lectures on the same conditions as men, but to qualify for the degrees women must reside at Durham in the women's hostel provided by the university.

The University of Wales, which came into existence under the charter of 1893, admits women to its examinations and degrees, as members of the university, on the strictest equality with men, and women are equally eligible for any office created by the university. Much the same is true of the recently constituted universities, such as those of Birmingham and Liverpool, and at the university colleges

throughout the country no distinction is made between the

sexes.

So far as the Scottish universities are concerned, that is to say, the Universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and St. Andrews, it is only necessary to say that the Universities (Scotland) Act, 1889, included a provision "to enable each university to admit women to graduation in one or more faculties, and to provide for their instruction." An ordinance to this effect was passed in 1892, with the result that women are in every case admitted to the degrees in arts, science and medicine, and at Aberdeen to the degrees in law. The university lectures are, as a rule, open to women, but in some cases separate instruction is proIvided for them.

Despite current rumours, there are at present in Ireland but two universities, Dublin University, or Trinity College, Dublin, and the Royal University. The admission of women has been approved by the council of Trinity College, and a recommendation was brought before the Senate on June 9 of this year and sanctioned by an overwhelming majority. In the case of the Royal University of Ireland, which, like the old University of London was, is purely an examining body, all degrees, honours, scholarships, and even junior fellowships are open to students of either sex, and candidates for medical degrees alone are required to pursue fixed courses of study at special colleges.

Before reviewing the regulations for the admission of women to continental universities, a digression, interesting at least to men of science, may be permitted. What is the character of the education given in schools for girls by the women who have had the advantages resulting from the concessions now described? What part does science take in the curricula of the schools administered by university women? It may at least be said that it is becoming increasingly understood that household management is a branch of applied science; cookery and laundry-work are, in some quarters at least, recognised as applications of chemistry to domestic needs; and hygiene and physiology are appreciated to some extent as the foundations upon which the arrangements for the health of the home should be based. But the adherence to these commonplace truths is still too much a matter of theory, and the present methods of teaching in girls' schools are based almost exclusively upon what has grown up in the schools for boys. Prof. Armstrong, at this year's meeting of the British Association, offered a strong protest in this connection. He said, "When I consider what my own children have done at school, what girls generally are doing, I am in despair— the training is so hopelessly unpractical, so academic, so narrow in its outlook. There is so little insight and originality displayed by women in diagnosing and providing for women's requirements; female educators are so obstinate and difficult to persuade, so limited in their conceptions." More recently that vigorous and brilliant author, Mrs. F. A. Steel, has written: "Read through, for instance, the Education Act-new or old does not matter, since any Education Act I have ever heard of errs with equal and intolerable ignorance and see if the one great unalterable difference in physiological life between a boy and a girl is even considered. It is not. And yet it is, it must be perforce, a potent factor in the whole question of girls' education."

The fact is that as yet we have not had sufficient experience in the direction of girls' education to come definitely to final conclusions. Speaking comparatively, it is a new movement, and such warnings as those just quoted, useful though they are as hints that caution and a reconsideration of the special needs of girls are necessary, should not lead to violent changes which are likely to do more harm than good. Though many questions raised are as yet insoluble, one thing at least seems tolerably clear, and that is the desirability of the introduction into all schools for girls of instruction in the scientific method. The inculcation of habits of exact observation, of accurate measurement, and of the absolute necessity for deriving all conclusions from sufficient premises, habits which are most easily and satisfactorily formed by the study of suitable branches of science, will act as the most effective corrective to the feminine disposition to arrive at conclusions intuitively, and to assert that a thing is so because it is so.

It may be pointed out here that there seems, judging