The device affords a simple means of illustrating the chaotic movement of a large number of small particles similar to the motion of molecules in gases and vapors. The similarity is especially instructive when compared with the evaporation of a liquid since the effect of the evaporating mercury upon the particles leaving its surface is similar to the actual motion of vapor molecules which leave a liquid.

The phenomenon can be projected upon a screen and the particles and their movement greatly magnified, so that the device may be used for lecture demonstration of the kinetic theory.

PHYSICAL LABORATORY,

E. R. STOEKLE

THE CUTLER-HAMMER MFG., COMPANY

ABNORMALITIES IN THE CHICK EMBRYO1

For the past five years the writer has had under her supervision the preparation of the vast amount of material used for large embryology classes. On account of the possibly controlled conditions under which it could be obtained, the chick was extensively used. Hundreds of these embryos have been examined. Seldom were the eggs incubated for a longer period than three days. For the first two years the pressure to secure material was so great than only the normal embryos of the right degree of development were saved. It was noticed that a large per cent. of the fertile eggs did not give embryos which were satisfactory for class use. The obtaining of an extremely abnormal embryo and two embryos on one blastoderm in a single incubation lead to the saving of all of the specimens. Since that time, over two hundred abnormal ones have been collected.

The abnormalities seemed to occur more in the central nervous system than elsewhere. Two regions were particularly affected, the brain and the neural tube in the region of the last two or three mesoblastic somites and the beginning of the segmental plate. However, the abnormalities did not occur in both of

1 Contribution from the Zoological Laboratory, Kansas State Agricultural College, No. 22.

these regions in the same embryo. In embryos obtained from eggs incubated forty-eight hours the abnormality of the neural tube extended over a length of between one eighth and one fourth of a millimeter. The neural tube here was either solid without a central canal or the central canal was extremely small, or there were from two to five canals. This could be recognized in the whole mount as apparent loops of one side of the neural plate, or as a thickened part of the entire tube. The most extreme case of the abnormality of the brain was a seventy-two-hour chick, in which the brain was only about one-fourth the normal size and the fore-, mid- and hind-brains appeared as a series of loops. Another example was a forty-eight-hour chick which had an optic vesicle less than one third the normal size. This optic vesicle was connected with the brain by a stalk more than twice the normal length.

During the past summer Miss Alsop, a graduate student, undertook some experiments upon the cause of these abnormalities. At the same time we were running some controls under normal conditions. She found that she could obtain a large per cent. of abnormalities, and, at will, could produce them either in the brain region or in the region of the tube. She hopes to have a detailed account of her experiments, along with drawings and a more extended description of these abnormalities, ready for publication in a short time.

MARY T. HEAMAN KANSAS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, MANHATTAN, KANS.

SCIENCE

EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND LEADERSHIP1

THE British Science Guild has sustained a grievous loss by the sudden death of Sir Alexander Pedler, who for eleven years was its valued honorary secretary. To all the work of the guild he brought wide experience and ripe knowledge. He gave his time freely to its service, and he has been a wise counsellor and a true friend during its early years. He died, as he would have wished, while engaged in work for his country.

Professor Gregory has dealt with our annual report and the objects at which we have aimed in the past year; but there is one matter to which I wish to direct special attention. The war has forced upon us the necessity for efforts to establish the manufacture of many articles formerly obtained mainly or entirely from abroad. Among such products and appliances are synthetic dyes, pharmaceutical and medicinal preparations, glassware and optical instruments, medical and surgical apparatus, and other important requirements alike of peace and of war. The fiction, if it existed, that German science was an essential factor in manufactures of this kind has been permanently dispelled. The guild is organ,izing an exhibition of British scientific products in order to show what has recently been accomplished by British science and industry. His Majesty the King has graciously consented to be patron of this exhibition and Lord Crewe is its president. The exhibition will be open at King's College next August, and we hope that it will effectively demonstrate the successful application of British scientific research and ingenuity brought into play to meet the needs of the war, as well as prove conclusively that our dependency on Germany in certain departments of industry can be

overcome.

1 Presidential address to the Annual Meeting of the British Science Guild, June 19, 1918.

Last year I endeavored to direct attention to some of the conditions which post-war reconstruction demands, and to indicate the direction in which we must move if we are not only to rebuild our national prosperity, but also to base it on broader foundations, so that it may be shared by every honest worker with hand or brain. Much has happened on sea and land since April of last year, and the war still dominates our activities and absorbs our thoughts. It has now been made plain to us all that the fate of the world will be determined on the western front, as was inevitable. And to the vast majority of the English-speaking peoples it has become clear that no enduring peace-no peace compatible with honor and such as would enable us to begin our great task of reconstruction-is possible until Germany accepts defeat. The Allies have frequently disavowed all desire to crush Germany out of national existence. That idea is a fiction invented, like many others, by her Prussian rulers to induce the masses to bear their growing burdens and to acquiesce in the reckless squandering of their manhood. It is in the general interest that Germany should remain a great power; but the accursed spirit which has been deliberately instilled into the German people the spirit which is responsible for the greatest catastrophe the world has known, and for the infamies committed by the German navy and army-must be destroyed. Otherwise there can be no rest for mankind, and civilization will perish. The war, with all its cruel losses, sorrows and suffering, must continue until the menace of German militarism has ended and the nations of the world, small and great, are left free to develop in security on their own chosen lines. If ever there were doubts as to the issue, they have been dispelled by the splendid resistance which the Allies are offering to the German masses and by the gigantic efforts which America is making to bear her full share in the battle for human freedom.

In the year that has passed, our plans for reconstruction have made some progress, and we have gained more insight into our national needs. Always, as we seek to weigh our past

methods in the balance and to find remedies for the blemishes in our national, political and industrial life, the task before us seems to grow in magnitude and difficulty. And always, if we try to trace the ultimate cause of some failure, blunder, or sign of weakness, we arrive at errors of judgment due either to lack of knowledge or to neglect to apply knowledge that was available if sought. Two of the outstanding tragedies of the war-the operations in the Gallipoli Peninsula and the breakdown in Mesopotamia-have been exhaustively examined, with the result of proving that necessary knowledge was either ignored or not ascertained by the individuals responsible. In other cases, similar investigations must have led to the same verdicts.

The stern necessities of the war have forced upon successive governments the employment of trained non-officials in many capacities. The work accomplished under conditions of extemporization has been marvelous in amount, and it supplies evidence of our innate organizing capacities; but there has been lamentable waste. Government has not always succeeded in using experts to the best advantage. Square men have been too frequently placed in round holes, and in the building up of new departments of state the coordination of effort and the essential principles of sound administration have been palpably lacking. The foresight required to convert a peace-loving people into an armed nation and to fulfil on a sudden all the vast and various demands of the greatest of all wars is necessarily rare; but it can not be said that the best use has been made of the trained intelligence at our disposal, and our political methods have not proved well adapted to a supreme national emergency.

Meanwhile, we have been brought face to face with German efficiency, deadly in some aspects, because concentrated during many years upon deliberate preparation for world conquest. We are only now beginning to understand the meticulous care with which every requirement that could possibly be foreseen had been studied and provided for in advance. In the years before the war, we had often been warned of growing competition in

trade, and it was certainly true that German exports of home production to European countries were rapidly mounting and tending to supplant our own. This was due alike to advantages of position and of communications as well as to the far-sighted policy of the German government. In the general markets of the world outside Europe, however, we were more than holding our own, and Mr. H. H. O'Farrell has shown that in the periods from 1895-99 to 1910–13 we had nearly doubled our superiority to the Germans, owing largely to the magnitude and efficiency of our mercantile marine.

What we failed to recognize was that German peaceful penetration was directed to obtain financial control of certain key industries and vital raw materials in order that, when it was decided to light the fires of war we should be placed in a position of grave difficulty in the manufacture of munitions. A further object was, I am now convinced, involved. It was desired that as many influential persons as possible should be closely entangled in financial interests of which Germany held control, so that during and after war Germans in this country might obtain protection. In no other way can the amazing tenderness shown to Germans, which has given rise to strong resentment, be explained. The treatment of British subjects in Germany, and the liberty accorded to Germans among us offers a most startling contrast.

As little did we realize the strenuous German propaganda stealthily at work all over the world before August, 1911, and since develop with lavish expenditure. Every country of the Allies and of neutrals has felt this malignant influence. Mainly by its agency, Russia has been brought to ruin, and the fair hopes of victory last summer, which we were justified in cherishing, have been deferred. Italy was brought close to disaster by the same means, but has nobly rallied. France is still dealing with the unseen hand, and America has been forced to take drastic measures. Here, as in Ireland and in India, the effects of the most insidious weapons of the German government

have been felt, and they have not yet disappeared.

I mention this as a typical example of German efficiency and forethought of a kind which the British nation would rightly have scorned, but which have told heavily in the war and must be guarded against in the future. In the higher regions of statesmanship, that efficiency has inevitably failed. A government which confidently believed that it had the right, by reason of the alleged inherent superiority of the German nation, to force its will upon all other peoples, was naturally unable to understand their mentality; and the arrogance bred of the consciousness of military strength entailed serious miscalculations for which Germany will pay heavily. Impressed with the baseless idea that atrocities, if sufficiently revolting, would intimidate her enemies, the kaiser and his accomplices have succeeded in arraying against themselves all the free nations in the vanguard of progress. They have made the German name and Kultur by words and synonyms of barbarism. They will find that the moral reprobation of the civilized world will dog their footsteps in the years to come, and that the final overthrow of the power of their present governing classes will be the necessary first condition of their readmission to the family of nations. We can learn from German methods what to avoid.

In our projects for national reconstruction there is perhaps a tendency to regard increased industrial and commercial efficiency as paramount. This may be natural, because nothing but a great development of economic production within the empire can restore our heavily burdened financial resources. But, if we read the lessons of this war aright, we must see that this alone can not suffice, and that our industries might be paralyzed by antagonistic forces arising from want of other than purely technical efficiency. Peace will find us face to face with new problems of democracy still unsolved. A huge new electorate will convey political power to masses of men and women for the most part slenderly equipped for the responsibilities which they must assume. Democracy is still on its trial,

and its limitations are frequently forgotten. The masses can never build; but they can always and easily destroy, as the wrecking of Russia, following historical precedents, plainly shows. They can, however, for good or for evil, choose their rulers and displace them when they please. The theory that the intensely complex and vastly important work of modern governments can be continuously inspired by the will of the people is untenable. The hopes of the future depend upon the trained and disinterested leadership of a minority, in the workshop as in the cabinet, and upon the intelligent acquiescence of the majority.

During the war, the duties normally undertaken by government have been immensely extended and not always satisfactorily discharged. It has become more than ever clear that private enterprise and initiative, by which the trade and commerce of the empire were built up, are far more efficient than the agency of government. But there is work to be done which must be entrusted to government and to elected local authorities; and private enterprise will need assistance in certain directions, and some measure of wise control in others. When peace comes, more will be demanded from our governments than they have been accustomed to undertake in the past, and trained intelligence in our departments of state and wherever leadership and direction are required will be the essential condition of successful reconstruction. Of the future of democracy, nothing is certain except that it must inexorably depend upon the character of the acquired knowledge of the leaders whom the enfranchised masses elect to follow. And as the choice of leaders will be decided largely by the moral and intellectual equipment of the masses, the importance of sound and widely diffused education must be vastly enhanced in the years to come. Germany has shown to the world the appalling results of an education directed to Prussianize a great people and to concentrate their minds upon materialistic ideals to be enforced by arms on other nations. Our education must seek to inspire ideals of another kind-the true patriotism

which places the national welfare in the forefront of its efforts, which desires nothing at the expense of other peoples, which regards peace as the greatest of blessings and the sure safeguard of the progress of mankind, and relegates force to the righting of wrongs in the last resort.

Since the last annual meeting of the guild, all questions of education have been under discussion, and we now know better where our weakness lies and the entent and nature of our needs. In the number of our institutions providing higher education America alone stands ahead of us. Sir Robert Hadfield has pointed out that Great Britain and Ireland have one university per two and one half millions of population as compared with one million in America. In the dominions, on the other hand, where the population is relatively sparse and the distances great, the proportion is one university to two thirds of a million of people. This numerical comparison is, however, misleading, except that it indicates educational centers capable of extending their activities. The true criterion is the number of students who undergo a complete course of training. Of full time students only 4,400 entered our universities in 1913-14, and of them several hundred were foreigners who would subsequently leave this country. Putting the output of university and technically trained men and women in another way, it appears that per 10,000 of population there were 16 full time students in Scotland, 13 in Germany, 10 in the United States, 6 in Ireland, 5 in England and 5 in Wales. The figure given for the United States includes only students at universities and technical schools of recognized standing. If all students taking four-year courses at such institutions were included the rate per 10,000 of population would be doubled. It is impossible not to believe that these figures help to account for the high standard of intelligence in Scotland and America and for the success of the Scottish and American peoples in many spheres of activity, while the relative backwardness of England, Ireland and Wales must exercise an influence in public life.