SOUTH-WESTERN POLYTECHNIC,

MANRESA ROAD, CHELSEA, S. W.

The Day College Courses consist of 30 hours per week, and are in prepar ation for London University degrees of B.Sc. in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, in Chemistry, Physics and Natural Science. Session Fee, £15 The Evening Classes consist of similar courses at much reduced rates. The Technical Day Courses are arranged to extend over 3 years and prepare for Engineering, Electrical, Chemical and Metallurgical professions. *S. SKINNER, M.A. *W. H. ECCLES, D.Sc. *J. LISTER, A. R.C.S. L. LOWNDS, B.Sc., Ph.D. *J. B. COLEMAN, A.R.C.S. J. C. CROCKER, M.A. *F. H. LOWE, B.Sc. C. W. HALE.

Mathematics and Physics

Chemistry and Metallurgy

ARMSTRONG COLLEGE,

NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.

(IN THE UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM.)

The Council invite applications for the post of LECTURER in MECHANICAL ENGINEERING. Stipend, £300 per annum. Candidates must send in six copies of their application and testimonials not later than September 20, 1906, to the undersigned, from whom further particulars

PADDINGTON, W.

(UNIVERSITY OF LONDON.)

The WINTER SESSION will begin on OCTOBER 1.

The Medical School provides complete courses for the Medical Degrees of the Universities of London, Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham; for the Diplomas of M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.; and for the Naval and Military Medical Services.

PRELIMINARY SCIENTIFIC (M. B. Lond.).-A complete Course of Chemistry, Physics, and Biology, under Recognised Teachers of the University, will begin on October 2.

SIX ENTRANCE SCHOLARSHIPS in Natural Science, value £145 to £52 10s., will be competed for on September 24-26. Calendar and full particulars on application to the DEAN.

COACHING (THEORY AND

PRACTICE)

In BIOLOGY, BOTANY, CHEMISTRY and PHYSIOLOGY for MEDICAL EXAMS.

Especial Course of Instruction in THERAPEUTICS, PHARMA COLOGY and MICROSCOPY for INSTITUTE OF CHEMISTRY EXAM.

Mr. FREDERICK DAVIS, The Laboratories, (Registered in Column B (Advanced Education). Teachers Registratio Council, Board of Education, S.W.),

49 and 51 IMPERIAL BUILDINGS, LUDGATE CIRCUS, E.C.

COUNTY OF LONDON.

The London County Council invites applications for the under-mentioned posts of ASSISTANT TEACHERS in ordinary schools. Applications must be made on Form 40, and addressed, as indicated in the advertisement, to the divisional correspondents, from whom copies of the form may be obtained. If a written application be made for a form, it must be marked outside Application for Form 40," and must be accom panied by a stamped and addressed foolscap envelope or wrapper.

County Electoral Area and School. WOOLWICH: Plum Lane.

Dept. B.

Applications for the above appointment Divisional Offices, 2 Greenwich Road, S.E.

County Electoral Area and School. CLAPHAM: Wix's Lane.

Dept.

B.

Status.

ASST. MASTER, to teach Practical Science.

to be sent to Mr. W. Buck,

Status.

ASST. MASTER. qualified to take charge of laboratory and to teach all stages of Physics and Chemistry.

Applications for the above appointment to be sent to Mr. W. I. RODGERS, Divisional Offices, Stockwell Road, S. W.

Candidates, other than successful candidates, invited to attend the Managers' meeting, will be allowed third-class return railway fare, but no other expenses.

Canvassing, either directly or indirectly, will be considered a disqualifi

It is to be distinctly understood that the appointment gives no claim to pension or indemnity.

The Government reserves to itself the right to dismiss the assistant for misconduct or incapacity.

In the Government Schools, as in all State Administrations in Egypt, Sunday is a working day. The Schools are closed on Fridays.

Leave will be granted on the same terms as to other Government Officials. The possibility of taking leave, and the period of the year at which it is granted, depend upon the exigencies of the service

Pay commences from date of arrival in Cairo. On taking up his duties in Cairo, the Assistant will receive one month's pay in lieu of passage money. All applicants should attach a certificate from a legally qualified medical man, stating that in his opinion the candidate would pass as a first-class life for insurance purposes.

All applicants should state :

Their training and qualifications in Analytical Chemistry, Their age,

What foreign languages they know, and

If they can be in Cairo by October 1.

The latest mail by which applications may be posted will leave London on Friday, August 31. Applications to be addressed :-THE DIRECTOR, Government School of Medicine, Cairo, Egypt.

THE GOVERNMENT

OF

CEYLON

require a LECTURER in PHYSICS and a LECTURER in CHEMISTRY for the Colombo Medical and Technical Colleges. Salary for each post, £400, rising by annual increments of £25 to £500

a year The Government also require a SCIENCE MASTER for the Royal College, Colombo, to teach Chemistry and Physics for London University Pass Examinations, including the Intermediate B.Sc. Salary, £350, rising to £450 by annual increments of £25.

For the above appointments preference will be given to graduates in honours of any British University, under the age of 35.

Salaries are subject to a deduction of 4 per cent. as contribution to the Widows' and Orphans' Pension Fund.

Free passages to the Colony. Leave and pension on same terms as to other officers of the permanent service.

Applications should be sent before August 15 to the ASSISTANT PRIVATE SECRETARY, Colonial Office, S. W., and envelopes should be marked with the name of the post applied for. Copies only of testimonials (not more than six).

THE VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF

MANCHESTER.

SESSION 1906-7.

The SESSION will commence on TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2 next. The following prospectuses may be obtained on application to the REGISTRAR:

ΤΟ

SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICAL MASTERS.-September Vacancies.-Graduates in Science other well qualified Masters seeking posts in Public and other Schools should apply at once, giving full details as to qualifications, &c., to Messrs. GRIFFITHS, SMITH, POWELL & SMITH, Tutorial Agents (Estd. 1833), 34 Bedford Street, Strand, London. Immediate notice of all the best vacancies will be sent.

Salaries £400 to £500, £350 to £450, and £300 to £400. 20 Science Graduates for Public Colleges, England and Abroad. Also Woodwork vacancy, £150. List of Science and Mathematical Vacancies sent to all Candidates.

ORELLANA

& СО.

can guarantee each candidate with good references an appointment. No fee till suited.

ESTD. OVER 50 YEARS.

80 WIGMORE STREET, LONDON, W.

COACHING.-Gentleman with London University diplomas in Applied Science wishes to coach gentlemen reading for examinations in mathematics, electrical and mechanical engineering, and allied subjects, at their own residence or place agreed upon. Apply by letter to "EQUATION," c/o Smith's News Agency, Worcester

Experienced Lecturer, young, tall, wishes for engagement round Birmingham or Worcester for the following subjects:-Mathematics, Electrical Engineering, and Applied Physics. Apply by letter to EQUATION," c/o Smith's News Agency,

Worcester.

For other Scholastic Advertisements, see page cx.

For Sale, a unique Collection of Minerals, some 300 specimens, and catalogue. Can be seen by appointment.Address W. TRURAN, 168 Richmond Road, Dalston, London, N.E.

SCIENTIFIC PEOPLE.

These pads are suitable for all Astronomical, Mathematical, and Scientific Purposes. They are very handy in form and can be had divided into Millimetres, and also Inches divided into 8ths, 10ths, 12ths, and 16ths.

In 2 sizes-100 sheets in each pad. Size 8 × 10, price 1/6 net, post free 1/10. Size 5 x 8, price 9d. net, post free 1/

W. & A. K. JOHNSTON, Ltd., Dept. N,

Edina Works, EDINBURGH.

Write for Illustrated Catalogue "Mn" post free on application.

PASTORELLI & RAPKIN, Ltd.,

46 HATTON GARDEN, LONDON, E.C. ACTUAL MANUFACTURERS of all kinds of Meteorological Instruments.

THURSDAY, JULY 26, 1906.

SIR HENRY ROSCOE'S REMINISCENCES. The Life and Experiences of Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S. Written by Himself. Pp. xii + 420. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1906.) Price 125. net.

IR HENRY ROSCOE, who is known to us all as one of the most genial figures among the band of great discoverers who gave a peculiar distinction to the reign of Queen Victoria, has been persuaded by his friends to give to the world a charming book of memories, which were written originally, as he tells us, for the use of his family. Now Sir Henry Roscoe is, it appears, a "Sport" among the Ruscoes in his taste for science, and the result is that we get from him, on this occasion, not a mere history of chemistry, nor even a mere record of scientific affairs in his own times, but something which will appeal, and appeal strongly, to a far wider audience than that provided by his scientific friends and admirers, numerous, indeed, though these must be.

We suppose many of our readers are aware that whether Sir Henry Roscoe is or is not a Sport," as he puts it, in his taste for science, he comes of a family which for a century and a half has been distinguished for the literary power and for the capacity for affairs exhibited by many of its members, and that in spite of his joke upon the subject, even scientific power has not been altogether unknown armong them, his grandfather, William Roscoe the historian, being still so well remembered among botanists that Sir Henry had the odd experience, only a few years ago, when on a visit to Egypt, of being mistaken for the former, by a professor, who thought he recognised in the great chemist the author of a monograph on the Monandrean plants published so long ago as the year 1826.

in

་་

The William Roscoe alluded to above, Sir Henry's grandfather and the founder of the reputation of the family, is, however, far more widely remembered as a historian than as a botanist. In the former capacity h achieved a European reputation by laying the foundations of a new era in the history of the Renaissance, and will long be remembered for his "Lives of Lorenzo de' Medici and Leo X." He was the first man of real mark in literature produced by the city of Liverpool, and his unique position in that city led Washington Irving to describe him the "Sketch-book " as the literary landmark of the place, where, "like Pompey's Column at Alexandria," he towered "alone in classic dignity." Sir Henry Roscoe's father was also a man of great powers; he became Judge of the Court of Passage at Liverpool, but died young, leaving his son at the age of three to the sole care of his mother. This lady, like her son's father and grandfather, evidently possessed not a little literary ability, as is shown by her Life of Vittoria Colonna," which was published in 1868 by Messrs. Macmillan and Co., and

with it a capacity for affairs which enabled her to preside over the early education of her son with singular judgment and success.

Most of those who have read Lord Roberts's Forty-one Years in India," must have been struck, as they perused its pages, by his singular good fortune in meeting interesting people and making delightful friends at every turn-a feature of his life which was due, no doubt, to his possessing the happy gift of a quick eye for what is best and brightest in those with whom he is thrown in contact. As one reads Sir Henry Roscoe's experiences, one cannot but conclude that he too was born under a happy star; for not only does he appear to have met "good fellows" at every stage of his life, a fact which we may venture to ascribe to his own genial temperament, but some good fairy seems to have presided over his affairs, with the express object of making him a chemist, and to have taken care that at every stage he should be flung against real chemists, makers of discoveries, and enthusiastic teachers, just the men, in short, who were best calculated to keep alive in him that capacity for asking "foolish" questions, which often worried his maternal grandfather, and to excite in him the secret desire-which we suspect every discoverer of Sir Henry's rank has hugged to his heart at an early age--to make, some day, just one discovery, at least, in his favourite science. But, however that may be, it is clear that from Balmain, the discoverer of boron nitride, Roscoe "picked up his love of chemistry " in the laboratory of the High School of the Liverpool Institute, and that his scientific tastes could not have been fostered by better guides than Thomas Graham and W. C. Williamson, whom he found at University College a few years later, and Bunsen, his life-long friend, with whom he worked and did great things at Heidelberg, when he betook himself in due course to that beautiful home of science to be soaked in research in the splendid German manner. At Heidelberg Sir Henry Roscoe's progress was rapid; after six months' work he passed the examination for the doctorate "summa cum laude," this being the first time this highest degree was granted to an Englishman, and it was here, partly in 1855 and partly in later years during vacations, that he carried out his well-known work on the chemical action of light. In 1857 he became professor of chemistry at the Owens College, and thereafter, as everyone knows, he played a leading part, for well-nigh half a century, in English science, and in not a few departments of public life connected therewith, helping on pure science by his researches and by his books, promoting the usefulness of chemistry in education by his "Little Roscoe," as it used to be called, which has been the guide, philosopher and friend of thousands upon thousands of English students, and advancing generally national efficiency in a dozen different directions by his public labours both in and out of Parliament.

But considerations of space forbid us from pursuing the attractive theme provided by, Sir Henry Roscoe's manifold activities, and compel us to return to the subject of his latest book. Briefly, we may say that

all who read it will find it delightful. It is full of information about men and matters, an epitome in non-technical language of that part of the history of our own times in which Sir Henry has played a distinguished part. It is enlivened with many good stories, especially of his great master and lifelong friend Baron Bunsen, and adorned with many excellent portraits of the scientific giants of the nineteenth century. Though written, as we have said, for the use of his family in the first instance, this book of memories is essentially a public document, a record of many matters, not commonly known, during an important period. For details of these the book itself must be consulted, since a mere enumeration of the names of those with whom its author has worked in public affairs, or a list of the debates, scientific, educational, industrial and political, in which he has taken part would overcrowd the space available for this notice. In its pages will be found records of student life in Germany in the distant days when it was scarcely possible, or at any rate very difficult, to become a chemist in any other country; stories about University College in the hey day of its youth, when De Morgan, Sharpey, Graham, Liston, and others of equal eminence were among the professors, and Lister, FarrerHerschell, Bagehot, Jessel, Hutton, Henry Thompson, and Edward Fry were, or recently had been, among its students; much about the early history of Owens College, which, when Roscoe joined the staff, could boast only of thirty-five students, of whom but fifteen were at work in the laboratory, and of the gradual growth of the college in size and dignity until it became the first of the new English universities; a rich mine of information about the progress of technical education from the year 1883, when a Royal Commission consisting of "Mr. Bernhard Samuelson, Mr. John Slagg, Mr. (now Sir) Swire Smith, Mr. (now Sir) Philip Magnus, Mr. William Woodall, and Sir Henry Roscoe was appointed to study and report on the then state of technical education at home and abroad, and, again, about the recent history of the University of London, of which Sir Henry was for some time Vice-Chancellor, and many other important matters. The book closes, as such a book should, with a few pages which give us a glimpse of the life of Sir Henry and Lady Roscoe at Woodcote Lodge, their Surrey home.

Apart from his scientific work, and the part he took in founding Owens College, Sir Henry Roscoe's share in the labours of the Royal Commission on Technical Instruction and his subsequent labours on behalf of technical and secondary education represent the great feature in his public life. Sir Henry and his colleagues not only spent many months travelling in this country and all over Europe for the public good, but they did this at their own expense; and, after their report was published, many of them spared neither time nor trouble in spreading abroad the

knowledge they had acquired of what was being done

by our competitors in other countries. One trembles to think what might still be the state of technical education in this country but for them and their

unstinted labours. We should like to quote a few passages from this part of the book, but want of space makes this impossible. But there is one side of the matter to which attention may well be directed at this moment, when the question of national defence, or some part of it, goes daily into the pot, and daily comes out of it again.

It has often been said that the success of the Germans in the Franco-German War depended on the German schoolmaster. After the war this opinion found voice also in France, and Sir Henry illustrates this by telling us that at Rouen he saw, to his surprise, in the school museum a Prussian soldier's helmet. On asking why this was there, he was told by the director that when the scholars did not attend to their work it was his custom to bring this helmet down, put it on the desk, and say, "Now, if you do not make progress and learn properly this will happen to you again. The surest way to bring it upon you is to neglect your studies and grow up in ignorance, and become inferior in intellectual training." "The display of this helmet," said the director, “never fails to bring the blush of shame to the cheeks of my students, and to rouse their patriotism and their zeal for their studies." May we recommend this story to the attention of Mr. Haldane, and still more to that of the Minister for Education, and to politicians in general, and suggest that it has for us in England a moral also? Only here, alas! the men need to learn the lesson it conveys as well as, and, indeed, even more than, the boys.

66

We cannot conclude without expressing our admiration of Lady Roscoe's contribution to this charming volume, viz. the excellent reproduction of her photograph The Fisherman," which was recently pronounced, by a very competent authority, to be the best photograph by an English amateur that they could suggest for insertion in an American journal, and our hearty wish that Sir Henry and Lady Roscoe may long remain among us to enjoy their retreat in sunny Woodcote, where the great chemist has crowned his scientific career by the almost unique achievement of making both ends meet as an

amateur farmer.

W. A. S.