A HANDBOOK OF UNIVERSITIES
Minerva, which for twenty years has been an invaluable annual for university men, has issued as a supplement a volume containing details of the organization of universities and colleges throughout the world. It is to be followed by a second volume with similar material in regard to libraries, museums, observatories, etc. A vast amount of information is packed into 623 pages, printed in type almost too small to be legible. Like the annual issue of Minerva, it is edited with unusual accuracy, but, as is likely to be the case, the material appears to be the more satisfactory, the less the firsthand knowledge of the reader. Thus the only lectureship referred to under American universities is the "Sethman (intended for Silliman) lecturer at Yale." The following account of our fraternities would not give a clear or correct impression to foreigners: "In the larger colleges and in the universities most students are members of one or more 'fraternities.' The members live in the college, usually together in a chapter house. The most important is the Phi Beta Kappa Fraternity, founded in 1776." It is not true that Columbia University was in 1890 "completely reorganized on the model of the German universities." There is no reason to include the Cooper Union and to exclude the West Point Military Academy. But it seems captious to point out minor inaccuracies in a book covering such a wide field. The publishers and editors should rather be congratulated on the production of a book which could not be accomplished outside Germany. The frontispiece, here reproduced, is a portrait of Dr. Ed. Suess, professor emeritus of geology of the University of Vienna, who has just celebrated his eightieth birthday and has retired from the presidency of the Vienna Academy of Sciences.
SCIENTIFIC ITEMS
We record with regret the deaths of Professor Edward Lee Hancock, professor of applied mechanics in the Worcester Polytechnic Institute; of the Rev. Mariam Balcells, professor of mathematics at Boston College, previously director of the department of solar physics at the Observatorio del Ebro, and of Mr. Edward Whymper, known for his explorations among the Alps and in the Andes.
Dr. C. Willard Hayes, chief geologist of the L. S. Geological Survey, has retired to engage in technological work in Mexico.—At the meeting of the corporation of Yale University on September 18, Sir William Osier, regius professor of medicine at Oxford, was appointed Silliman lecturer for 1912, and Dr. Joseph P. Iddings, until 1908 professor of petrology in the University of Chicago, and now engaged in geological research, was appointed lecturer for 1913.
Owing to the epidemic of cholera, the various international congresses, geographical, agricultural and tuberculosis, will not meet in Rome this autumn. They have been postponed until the spring of 1912, the exact dates not yet being determined.—By invitation oi the trustees of the New York Public Library the autumn meeting of the National Academy of Sciences will be held in its new building, beginning on November 21.
Among the public bequests made by Mr. George M. Pullman was that of $1,200,00(1 for founding and endowing the Pullman Free School of Manual Training at Pullman, 111. This fund has increased to more than $2,500,000. The first step toward founding the school was the purchase, in 1908, of a campus of forty acres within the limits of the town of Pullman at a cost of $100,000. Mr. Laenas Gifford Weld, until recently professor of mathematics and dean of the faculty of liberal arts in the Iowa State university, was appointed principal in May and entered upon his new duties September 1. He will visit the leading technical and trade schools in this country and in Europe before the preparation of definite plans is undertaken.
