Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which have undertaken to provide" technical and professional train- ing to students who meet entrance requirements, have increased their student enrolment far more than any of the other institutions.
Registered Attendance at Chief Colleges and Universities.
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1910-1 1915-6
4,123 5,226
1,506 1,900
785 1,083
194
487
1,142 1,541
1,153 1,984
500
683
1,378 1,512
1920-1
5,667
3,475
1,253
735
2,128
7,7i8
652
1,551
Incr.
37%
131 %
60%
279%
86%
570%
30%
13%
The trend of higher education has been toward increasing oppor- tunity for the masses. This is shown not alone by the increasing number of full-time college students, but also by the rapid growth in the number taking part time " University Extension Courses." In Harvard, for example, the number taking these courses increased 96% from 1910 to 1920; in Boston University, 187%; under the direction of the State Department of Education the number increased from 1,360 in 1916 to 24,231 in 1920, nearly one-half of these stu- dents being registered in metropolitan Boston. The estimated number for 1921 was 30,000.
Municipal Boston in 1920 had 264 permanent and 137 portable school houses, besides 21 rented quarters for schoolroom use; provided 130,669 school sittings; and employed 3,413 teachers; also 97 assembly halls and 15 drill halls and gymnasia. It had 52 park and 32 schoolyard playgrounds; employed 153 recreation teachers,
f6 school physicians, 48 school nurses, and 25 attendance officers, n 1919 it registered 122,452 regular day-school pupils; 8,260 in evening schools and 9,651 in continuation schools. The registration in normal, high and latin schools for the same year was 17,018. Of the pupils 82-6 % were in public schools, and 17-4 % in private schools.
Buildings, Libraries and Museums. -In 1910 the old Museum of Fine Arts was demolished and on the site was erected the Copley Plaza Hotel, built at a cost of $3,800,000 and opened in 1911. The new building of the Museum of Fine Arts, erected on Huntington Ave., was opened Nov. 15 1909, and a second section opened Feb. 3 1915, the total cost at that time being $3,900,000. To the State House east and west wings were added during 1914-9, at a cost approximating $3,000,000. John Sargent's series of panels in the public library was practically completed in 1916, when he added a third sequence, the " Theme of the Madonna." In Jan. 1919 the public library contained 1,197,498 volumes (922,348 in Jan. 1908). It continued to be the largest free circulating library in the world, with a circulation of 2,300,- 732 for 1919 (1,529,111 for 1907). The New England Con- servatory of Music remained the largest in the United States, having in 1919 3,700 students. The Boston Opera House was erected on Huntington Ave. in 1909.
History and Finance. Boston, as a metropolitan district, has retained much of the institutional structure of the old towns which have grown together and become consolidated for certain purposes by legislation. Several things have happened in the 10 years 1910-20 indicating a drift toward political unification. What was called the " Boston 1915 " movement resulted in better business leadership, in more ample support given to the chamber of commerce and other trade bodies; and legislation looking toward a unified harbour place. A new charter adopted in 1909 gave to the city a small council (9 members) elected " at large." In 1920, under the leadership of Mayor Peters, a first effort was made to consolidate the several independent cities and towns under a " Greater Boston " charter. In many ways the whole metropolitan district had developed the habit of acting together, as was exemplified in the Liberty Loan and Victory Loan drives, the results of which were as follows: First Liberty Loan $133^90,360; Second Liberty Loan $147,259,650; Third Liberty Loan, $77,202,500; Fourth Liberty Loan, $139,008,150; Victory Loan, $83,852,700; total amount subscribed $581,113,350.
Boston's per capita expenses continued to be the largest of any American city; but in the lO-year period ending in 1918 the net debt increased only 17-11 %. The average yearly expenditure for the five years ending in 1917 was $32,990,507, excluding payments on funded and floating debts. The running expenses per capita in 1917 were $31.68 (New York, $25.64; Chicago, $22.26). The
Metropolitan Water Board, of whose expenditures Boston bears only a share, expended from 1900 to 1919 $22,463,201. The system has a capacity of 80,000,000,000 gallons. The city park system cost from 189910 1919 $1,954, 738. The city debt in 1919 was $80,908,397 (gross debt $124,410,101) ; this included the debt of Suffolk county, which in 1919 was $1,435,335. The chief objects for which the city debt was created were in 1919: highways, $21,600,000; parks, $10,- 750,000; drainage and sewers, $21,540,000; rapid transit, $36,340,- ooo. Boston paid in 1919 27-4 % of all state taxes, and about 32-65 %. and 8 1 % respectively of the assessments for the metropolitan sewer, parks and water service. The city's tax valuation in 1919 was $1,528,153,778, of which only $198,863,678 represented personalty.
(F. A. CL.)
BOTANY (see 4.299, with references on p. 302 to separate articles on botanical subjects).
I. Introductory. Any attempt to record the progress of botanical science during the decade 1910-20 is made peculiarly difficult by the fact that specialization has rendered it impossible for any one person to keep abreast of all its manifold advances. In the following survey, the subject is accordingly treated in separate sections. Special reference, however, may be made here to the remarkable developments of applied botany which have been a feature of progress in England. The development of forestry (see FORESTRY) is now recognized as a function of the State and the Forestry Commission is actively engaged in schemes for the promotion of research. The Ministry of Agri- culture, which had previously established a number of agricul- tural research stations, has not only been able to make provi- sion by increased endowments for. larger and more adequately remunerated staffs of investigators, but has also established two new stations of first importance. These stations, located together at Cambridge, are the seed testing station and the na- tional institute of agricultural botany. The ultimate object which the former will achieve is increased agricultural pro- duction by an improvement in the quality of seed. The latter which owes its existence to the initiative of Sir Lawrence Weaver and to the financial assistance of the Ministry of Agriculture, the Development Commission and members of the agricultural industry, aims at increasing production by the carrying out of large scale tests of the true- ness, cropping capacity and specific usefulness of plants of agricultural importance. To this end the station not only tests both existing and new varieties but provides for the working up of stocks of new and promising varieties on a scale sufficient to ensure adequate supplies for commercial use.
Scientific horticulture has also received a great impetus by the enlargement of the Royal Horticultural Society's experiment station at Wisley. Already the investigations conducted at the various experimental stations have led to results of great botanical importance. Of these may be mentioned the researches conducted at the John Innes Horticultural Institute on self- sterility of fruit trees, those at the East Mailing and Long Ashton stations for research in fruit trees, problems which have resulted in an important advance in knowledge of fruit-tree stocks a subject of equal botanical and horticultural importance.
The close association which has been established between the department of practical physiology and pathology at the Imperial College of Science, South Kensington, on the one hand, and the research stations at Rothamsted and East Mailing, on the other, marks an advance in organization destined to have an important and beneficent influence on the progress of botanical knowledge; for as it is certain that progress in applied science must depend on the pioneer work of pure science, so is it no less certain that applied science quickly discovers problems which would otherwise long await the interest and attention of the worker in pure science. (F. KE*)
II. General Physiology. The most striking aspect of advance in plant physiology of recent years is the further development of the attempt to relate the fundamental activities of the cell with the colloidal nature of protoplasm. Protoplasm is considered to be of the nature of a hydrosol with protein and lipoid material, and possibly carbohydrate, as its disperse phase. It may, however, assume temporarily during life, or permanently at death, the condition of a gel, as is shown by the cessation of the
