Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/99

Rh admitting students to the professional schools at the close of the sophomore year, either giving them the degree of A.B. then or after a certain amount of professional work. The newspapers have raised an outcry over this suggestion—they declaim against debasing the bachelor's degree, attracting students by low requirements and the like, confusing the question of the degree as a mere counter with the educational problem. Thirty or forty years ago the A.B. degree did not represent more than the equivalent of the completion of the present sophomore year. It signified rather less than completion of the course of the German gymnasium, of the French lycée or of the English and Scottish universities. Unwise competition for the best students has raised, not lowered, the requirements for the A.B. and for entrance to the professional schools. The A.B. might be abandoned, as in Germany, without any particular loss to the educational system. Its meaning is now vague and unsatisfactory. The real question is: Shall we require students who have completed the high school course to spend four years on so-called liberal studies and athletics before they may begin their real work? This question must be answered in the negative and has been so answered by the logic of events. It is far better to make the professional schools more liberal—that is, more insistent on methods, general principles and research than on mere technique rather than to require the A.B. degree as a preliminary. A more natural division of studies has been developed in France and Germany than here. The preparatory school and high school should be developed to include all studies that are required and pursued by text-books and recitations. The small denominational college should be placed on the level of the high school, where it can do good work. High schools and colleges should be found in every community. The universities can also conduct colleges for those who wish to go forward to the professional schools and faculties of philosophy or science. The student of the professional school who must complete his work in three years should be permitted to do so, while those who show ability for investigation and independent thought should work both in the professional school and the graduate school, and should be permitted to prepare simultaneously for the professional qualification and for the degree of A.M. or Ph.D., or what they represent.

seventy-second annual meeting of the British Association will not have the same historical significance as the famous meeting held in Belfast in 1874. At that meeting Tyndall delivered the address which was so widely criticized and discussed. It will be remembered by many that Tyndall there went beyond the limits of science and discussed problems of philosophy and religion. While his remarks were frank and outspoken, it is somewhat difficult for us to realize the objection taken to them thirty years ago. Scientific freedom has since been attained; and this to a certain extent may be said to date from Tyndall's address at the Belfast meeting of the Association. Professor Dewar's address at the present meeting was more nearly what is expected of such an address. After an introduction reviewing scientific organization and the place of Great Britain in science, he described those problems of chemistry on which he is the greatest living authority, namely, the history of cold and the absolute zero; the liquefaction of gases, especially hydrogen and helium; and various low temperature researches.

At the meeting of the sections a great number of important papers were presented, there being, however, an