Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, October 1899

Officers of the American Association for 1900.– The American Association, at Columbus, Ohio, elected as president for the next meeting, which is to be held in New York city, June 25 to 30, 1900, Prof. R. S. Woodward, of Columbia University. The vice-presidents-elect are: Section A (Mathematics and Astronomy), Asaph Hall, Jr., of Ann Arbor, Mich.; Section B (Physics), Ernest Merritt, of Ithaca, N. Y.; Section C (Chemistry), James Lewis Howe, of Lexington, Va.; Section D (Mechanical Science and Engineering), J. A. Brashear, of Pittsburg, Pa.; Section E (Geology and Geography), J. F. Kemp, of New York city; Section F (Zoölogy), C. B. Davenport, of Cambridge, Mass.; Section G (Botany), William Trelease, of St. Louis, Mo.; Section H (Anthropology), A. W. Butler, of Indianapolis, Ind.; Section I (Economic Science and Statistics), C. M. Woodward, of St. Louis. The permanent secretary is L. O. Howard, United States Entomologist, Washington, D. C.; General Secretary, Charles Baskerville, of Chapel Hill, N. C.; Secretary of the Council, William H. Hallock, of New York city. The sectional secretaries are: Section A, W. M. Strong, of New Haven, Conn.; Section B, R. A. Fessenden, of Allegheny, Pa.; Section C, A. A. Noyes, of Boston, Mass.; Section D, W. T. Magruder, of Columbus, Ohio; Section E, J. A. Holmes, of Chapel Hill, N. C.; Section F, C. H. Eigenmann, of Bloomington, Ind.; Section G, D. T. McDougal, of New York Botanical Garden; Section H, Frank Russell, of Cambridge, Mass.; Section I, H. T. Newcombe, of Washington, D. C. Treasurer, R. S. Woodward, of New York city.

Graphite.– An interesting account of the history and manufacture of graphite is given by E. G. Acheson in the June issue of the Journal of the Franklin Institute. In the year 1779 Karl Wilhelm Scheele, a young apothecary in the town of Köping, Sweden, discovered that graphite was an individual compound. It had up to this time been confounded with molybdenum sulphide. In 1800 Mackenzie definitely added graphite to the carbon group by showing that, on burning, it yielded the same amount of carbon dioxide as an equal amount of charcoal and diamond. Graphite in a more or less pure state is quite freely distributed over the earth, but only in a few places is it found under conditions of purity, quantity, ease of mining, refining, and transportation to market that permit of a profitable business being made of it. Statistics for the last six years (1890-'95) show an average yearly production of 56,994 short tons. The countries contributing to the supply were Austria, Ceylon, Germany, Italy, United States, Canada, Japan, India, Russia, Great Britain, and Spain. Great differences exist in the structure and purity of the graphites furnished from the various mines. There are two general forms – the crystalline and the amorphous. The product of the Ceylon mines is crystalline of great purity, analyzing in some cases over ninety-nine per cent carbon, while that of the Barrowdale mines is amorphous and also very pure. The chief impurity in graphite is iron. It is probable that the first use made of graphite was as a writing substance. The first account we have of its employment for this purpose is contained in the writings of Conrad Gessner on Fossils, published in 1565. Its present uses include the manufacture of pencils, crucibles, stove-polish, foundry-facing, paint, motor and dynamo brushes, anti-friction compounds, electrodes for electro-metallurgical work, conducting surfaces in electrotyping, and covering the surfaces of powder grains. For most of these purposes it is used in the natural impure state. The mining and manufacture of graphite into articles of commerce give employment to thousands of people. The mines of Ceylon alone, when working to their full capacity, employ about twenty-four thousand men, women, and children. The rapid increase in the use of graphite has led to considerable discussion in recent years regarding the possibility of its commercial manufacture. It has been made in a number of different ways in the laboratory, all, however, depending on the same fundamental principle – viz., the liberation of the carbon from some one of its chemical compounds, under conditions which prevent its reassociation with the same or other elements. Mr. Acheson, who has been working for several years in an endeavor to devise a commercially successful process of manufacture, found, somewhere back in 1893, that graphite was formed in the carborundum (electric) furnaces of the Carborundum Company of Niagara Falls. Since then he has been following up this clew, and now believes that "the only commercial way to make graphite is by breaking up a carbide by the action of heat." A building for its manufacture in this way, by the use of the electric furnace, is now in course of erection at Niagara Falls.

Commercial Education in England. 55 – It is only of comparatively late years that the Government has had anything to do with the education of the people. For some centuries back all English education was practically controlled by our two ancient universities – Oxford and Cambridge. They decided what subjects were to be taught, and how they were to be taught. The control they exercised over our English schools was an indirect one, but it was none the less effectual. The schools themselves were, like the universities, independent of Government, or, indeed, of any control. The principal of these are known as "public schools," though the term "public" has of late years also been applied to the public elementary schools. These are nearly all developments of ancient foundations. Winchester, founded in the fourteenth century, and Westminster, in the sixteenth, grew up under the shadows of great religious houses; Eton was established in the fifteenth century by the monarch, close to his own palace at Windsor; Harrow, which dates from the sixteenth century, is the most important example of the most numerous class of all privately founded local schools – grammar schools, as they were generally entitled – which have developed beyond their original founders' intention, and have eventually come to attract boys from all parts of the kingdom. The best boys from all of them went to the universities, and the course of study which was most successful at the university was naturally the course of study which was preferred at the school. The literæ humaniores, which were the sum total of university education, included only Greek and Latin language and literature, mathematics, and logic. Science – I have now in my mind the education of but a single generation back – was ignored. The teaching of modern languages was perfunctory in the extreme; the same may be said of history and geography, while even English language and literature were almost entirely neglected. Now an education modeled on these lines was not ill suited for professional men – men who went from the university into law, the Church, or medicine. But it was by no means suited, especially when cut short in its early stages, for boys whose future destination was the counting-house or the shop. We are not met to consider the training of scholars, but the sort of education best adapted to the requirements of the ordinary man of business, and given under the limitations inevitable in the conditions of the case – that is to say, in a very limited period and during the early years of life – intended also not only to train the mind but to provide a means of earning a living. Commercial education must in fact be a compromise between real education and business training. The more it inclines to the former the better. With the growth of modern industry and commerce the necessity for a training better suited for the requirements of modern life became more and more evident, and the place was supplied, or partially supplied, by private-adventure schools, which undertook to provide the essentials of a commercial education. Of late years also some important middle-class schools have been founded by institutions like the Boys' Public Day Schools Company, and the Girls' Public Day Schools Company, the teaching in which is of a modern if not of a commercial character. The growth also of science had its natural and obvious effects on educational methods. Scientific teaching was introduced at the universities – it had been practically ignored at Oxford, and recognized at Cambridge only as a department of mathematics. The more important of our public schools introduced what was known as a "modern side," that is to say, an alternative course which a boy might take, and in which science, modern languages, and mathematics took the place, to a greater or less extent, of the classical languages. Other schools modified their whole curriculum in a like direction; others again almost abandoned the ancient knowledge in favor of the modern. Such, in briefest and baldest summary, is the condition at which our system of secondary education has now arrived. In the meantime, elementary education in England had been organized and systematized. At the beginning of the century elementary education was imparted to the children of the peasants and agricultural laborers in village schools, most of which were sadly inefficient. In the towns there were various charitable institutions for educating the children of those who were unable to provide education for themselves, and there were also what were known as ragged and parochial schools, which were more or less of the same character as the elementary schools of to-day. Early in the century several important societies were established – they were mostly of a religious character – for the improvement of elementary education. By their assistance schools were founded throughout the country. These were maintained by voluntary effort, and so gained their name of voluntary schools, though they received aid from the Government, an annual grant being allotted for the purpose. In 1839 a committee of the Privy Council was created to regulate the administration of Government grants for education, and this committee still remains the governing body of our education department. The Elementary Education Act of 1870, with later acts of 1876 and 1880, laid down the principle that sufficient elementary education should be provided for all children of school age, and established a system of school boards, which boards were to be and were formed in all districts where such sufficient provision for education did not exist. By a later act of 1891 education was made gratuitous as well as compulsory. We have, therefore, now two great classes of elementary schools – school-board schools, in which education is free, and voluntary schools, in which a fee may be charged. Both alike receive Government aid under certain conditions. As a rule the voluntary schools are connected with the Church of England or with one or other of the nonconformist bodies. The boards which control the board schools are elected bodies, and the teaching is undenominational.

Genius and Habit.– W. L. Bryan and N. Harter are the authors of an interesting monograph in the Psychological Review for July, from which the following paragraphs are taken: "There is scarcely any difference between one man and another of greater practical importance than that of effective speed. In war, business, scientific work, manual labor, and what not, we have at the one extreme the man who defeats all ordinary calculations by the vast quantity of work he gets done, and at the other extreme the man who no less defeats ordinary calculations by the little all his busyness achieves. The former is always arriving with an unexpected victory, the latter with an unanswerable excuse for failure. It has seemed to many psychologists strongly probable that the swift man should be distinguishable from the slow by reaction time tests. For (a), granting that the performances demanded in practical affairs are far more complicated than those required in the laboratory tests, it seems likely that one who is tuned for a rapid rate in the latter will be tuned for a rapid rate in the former, when he has mastered them. Moreover (b), a rapid rate in elementary processes is favorable to their fusion into higher unitary processes, each including several of the lower. Finally (c), a rapid rate in elementary processes is favorable to prompt voluntary combinations in presence of new emergencies. In face of these a priori probabilities, eleven years' experience in this laboratory (the first three being spent mainly on reaction times) has brought the conviction that no reaction time test will surely show whether a given individual has or has not effective speed in his work. Very slow rates, especially in complicated reactions, are strongly indicative of a mind slow and ineffective at all things. But experience proves that rapid rates by no means show that the subject has effective speed in the ordinary, let alone extraordinary, tasks of life. How is this to be explained? The following answer is proposed: The rate at which one makes practical headway depends partly upon the rate of the mental and nervous processes involved; but far more upon how much is included in each process. If A, B, and C add the same columns of figures, one using readily the method of the lightning adder, another the ordinary addition table, while the third makes each addition by counting on his fingers, the three are presently out of sight of one another, whatever the rates at which the processes involved are performed. The lightning adder may proceed more leisurely than either of the others. He steps a league while they are bustling over furlongs or inches. Now, the ability to take league steps in receiving telegraphic messages, in reading, in addition, in mathematical reasoning, and in many other fields, plainly depends upon the acquisition of league-stepping habits. No possible proficiency and rapidity in elementary processes will serve. The learner must come to do with one stroke of attention what now requires half a dozen, and presently, in one still more inclusive stroke, what now requires thirty-six. He must systematize the work to be done, and must acquire a system of automatic habits corresponding to the system of tasks. When he has done this he is master of the situation in his field. He can, if he chooses, deal accurately with minute details. He can swiftly overlook great areas with an accurate sense of what the details involved amount to – indeed, with far greater justice to details than is possible for one who knows nothing else. Finally, his whole array of habits is swiftly obedient to serve in the solution of new problems. Automatism is not genius, but it is the hands and feet of genius."