Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/441

Rh character may be of a high degree of constancy in one group, while extremely variable in another; and characters are often most constant when most adaptive.

Hornbooks.—Hornbooks—those leaflets containing the alphabet, the a-b-abs, a text for exorcism, the Lord's Prayer, and the Roman numerals, framed and covered with transparent horn as with a glass—with which the first lessons in reading were administered to our ancestors, have disappeared so entirely that they are hardly known except to antiquaries, yet they were common in England down to the time of George II, and were introduced into America in the seventeenth century. Mr. Andrew W. Tuer, who has written their history, says that the preservation of many of those which have come down to us is due to the tricks of little boys, who dropped the hateful things through cracks in the floor or wainscoting, to be brought to light again when the house was pulled down. The earliest hornbook known to be left, which is assigned to the middle of the sixteenth century, was found behind the paneling of a farmhouse. A hornbook called the Middleton was discovered in 1828 in the thatch of an old cottage. As spelling books came more and more into use, hornbooks became obsolete; and when they were no longer in demand it is said that a million and a half were destroyed in one warehouse. They could, however, be found in use in the country villages down into the present century; and there may be people still living who took their first lessons from them, and had scholastic chastisement administered with the backs of them. As they became scarce, specimens of them rose in value; and while the usual price of them had been a penny, three halfpence, or twopence, a famous copy—the Bateman Hornbook—was sold at auction for three hundred and twenty-five dollars. This book was three inches and three quarters high and two inches and seven eighths wide, with a handle an inch long, and was covered, except the handle, with leather. The alphabet was preceded by the Cross, and this was the case with most of the hornbooks. Hence the phrase, "criss-cross row." The back was stamped with a figure of Charles I, bareheaded and in armor, on horseback. At the top corner and facing the king was a large celestial crown, issuing from a cloud above his head, and in the other corner an angel's face and wings. The book bore other marks of less interest. Some of the hornbooks were costly. Queen Elizabeth gave one of silver filigree to Lord Chancellor Egerton, and others were made of ivory and bone. Finally, we come to the gingerbread hornbook, which seems once to have been a common baker's dainty. Of it Prior wrote:

Hornbooks may be seen portrayed in pictures by the German and Dutch masters, as in Rembrandt's "Christ Blessing Little Children" and the works of Jan Steen and Van Ostade.

Value of "Useless" Research.—The report of the British Association's committee on the establishment of a national physical laboratory, after referring to what is done and what can be done for promoting research by the universities and schools and other existing institutions, specifies particular types of investigation which are outside the range of effort possible for such institutions or for an individual—such as observations of natural phenomena, the study of which must be protracted through periods longer than the average duration of human life; testing and verification of physical instruments and preservation of standards; and the systematic and accurate determination of physical constants and numerical data which may be useful for scientific or industrial purposes. In the discussion of this report. Prof. Fitzgerald opposed divorcing the universities from research, but hoped they would teach the usefulness of "useless" research, while investigations of commercial importance should be relegated to a national laboratory. Prof. Kohlrausch, of the Physical Training Institute (the Reichsanstalt) at Berlin, showed how completely that institution was answering the purposes for which it was founded, as illustrated in the great development of the technical glass industry, particularly of thermometer-making; the improvement of photometers and standards for measuring light; and researches in apparatus