Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/444

 placed upon her jaws, and to eat it. On one occasion the puma (who is often allowed to range the house), the dog, and Mr. Wittich slept together in the same bed. ... In training her he has chiefly used the whip, which she feels only on the nose, ear, and under the tail; he assures me he has made his own teeth meet through her skin in several other parts of her body without her showing any signs of sensation. Her memory is short, and three weeks' intermission of the performance necessitates much extra training and trouble."

Beet-Sugar in Germany.—Baron Lucius's report on the crisis in the beet-sugar industry of Germany, from 1884 to 1887, brings out the curious fact that the largest number of roots were used in the manufacture of sugar during 1884-'85, when the crisis was most intense. This is accounted for by the fact that preparations for extending the manufacture and the cultivation of the roots had been made before prices declined. The increase was also promoted by the general adoption of the processes of diffusion, and the production of a beet-root richer in saccharine matter. The production of molasses was also considerably increased. The Germans are estimated to consume eight kilogrammes of sugar per head; and the exports have increased in greater proportion than the production.



Apiarist of the Rhode Island Agricultural Experiment Station, maintains, as the result of personal observation, that bees do no damage to growing or fair fruit. The juice of fruit is, in fact, injurious to them; and they do not attack sound fruit, but only bruised fruit, or that which has been previously injured by other insects. Every member present of the State Horticultural Society, before which Prof. Cushman read his paper, sustained him in this view. The author spoke also of the useful agency of insects, particularly of bees, in aiding the fertilization of flowers, and in contributing to cross-fertilization.

Prof. John Bach McMaster's course of instruction in the history of the United States in the University of Pennsylvania, text-books are eschewed, and lectures and a printed syllabus take their place. Students are referred, whenever it is possible, to printed documents for information; and maps and diagrams, prepared by the members of the classes, are required to accompany the theses.

Royal Geographical Society has awarded its Royal Medals to Emin Pasha and to Lieutenant Younghusband—to the latter, for his journey from Manchuria over the Mustagh Pass to Cashmere and India, of which we have published an account; the Cuthbert Peek grant to Mr. E. C. Hare, for observations on the physical geography of Lake Tanganyika; the Murchison grant to Signor Vittoria Sella, in consideration of his recent journey in the Caucasus; and the Gill memorial to Mr. C. M. Woodford, for his expeditions to the Solomon Islands, of which a report has been published in the Monthly.

from Stephen Girard's will, dated February 16, 1830, in his eighty-first year: "The orphans admitted into the college shall be instructed in the various branches of a sound education, comprehending reading, writing, grammar, arithmetic, navigation, geography, surveying, practical mathematics, astronomy; natural, chemical, and experimental philosophy, the French and Spanish languages (I do not forbid, but I do not recommend, the Greek and Latin languages), and such other learning and science as the capacities of the several scholars may merit or warrant. I would have them taught facts and things, rather than words or signs; and especially I desire that by every proper means a pure attachment to our republican institutions and to the sacred rights of conscience, as guaranteed by our happy constitutions, shall be formed and fostered in the minds of the scholars." It is interesting to see how distinctly this notably clear-headed man set forth the requirements of a real education, which are only beginning to be adopted sixty years after he penned these words.

the opinion of Sir T. Spencer Wells, President of an English Sanitary Association, much of the outcry about dangers from women taking up men's work is breath wasted. He thinks women capable of a great deal more than they have been accustomed to do in times past. "If overwork sometimes leads to disease, it is more morally wholesome to work into it than to lounge into it." For every example of disease of mind or body induced by mental overstrain he has seen twenty "where evils equally to be deplored are caused in young women by want of mental occupation, by deficient exercise, too luxurious living, and too much amusement or excitement."

for the abolition of war are likely to gather increasing strength from the growing and universal expensiveness of the system. In the middle ages but little harm was done by war, except to the fighters. If a territory was overrun and devastated, there