goes to pay the salary of an assistant. The Department of Chemistry under the charge of Professor John Howard Appleton is in a Healthy condition. The same may be said of the Department of Zoölogy and Geology, under Professor A. S. Packard, and that of Astronomy under Professor Winslow Upton. Excellent work is done in all these departments, and young men who may be attracted to the university with the hope of being well trained in courses of collegiate study which accord with their tastes, and such as w ill fit them for the sort of professional life to which their inclinations lead them, will be sure not to be disappointed.
English Literary Piracy—As a sample of high-minded journalism in a country where there is a great deal of righteous indignation over the ways of American publishers, we give below a list of original articles and special translations reprinted from this magazine during the past year, without any credit whatever, in a London journal called Health, of which Dr. Andrew Wilson, F. R. S. E., is the editor. American periodicals in good standing uniformly give full credit for articles from foreign sources which they republish. The Popular Science Monthly has never violated this custom, and desires the same measure of justice from its foreign contemporaries:
"A Bald and Toothless Future," P.S.M. Oct., 1886; Health, Jan. 28.
"Vinegar and its Mother," P.S.M. Jan., 1887; Health, May 6, 13, and 20.
"Hats as a Cause of Baldness," P.S.M. May, 1887; Health, May 20.
"Hygiene as a Basis of Morals," P.S.M. May, 188; Health, June 10, 17, 24, and July 1.
"Glasgow's Bandy-Legged Children," P.S.M., July, 1884; Health, July 8.
"Brain-forcing in Childhood," P.S.M., April, 1887; Health, July 8, 15, 22, and 29.
"Variations in Human Stature." (Translated for the P.S.M. from La Nature.) P.S.M., July, 1887; Health, July 29, and Aug. 12.
"Physiology of Freezing." (Translated for the P.S.M. from Die Gartenlaube.) P.S.M., Sept., 1887; Health, Sept. 16 and 23.
"Human Brain-weights," P.S.M., July 1887; Health, Sept. 30.
"Hats and Baldness," P.S.M., Oct., 1887; Health, Nov. 18.
Centralization in School-Life.—James P. Applegate, editor of the New Albany, Indiana, "Ledger," in an address before an Editorial Association, considering the evils of the centralizing tendencies of the times, traced their origin to the public schools, when he said: "Teaching and learning have been reduced to a mathematical system and work with the regularity of machinery. Given so much room, so many pupils, so many hours, so many studies, so many pages of each, so many months in one department, so many in another; one class goes into the hopper at one end and goes out at the other. No matter if one head is larger or smaller than another, the brain brighter or duller, the body stronger or weaker, all is grist that goes to that mill and it is all ground with the same burrs. This system produces a certain order of general average intelligence, higher, perhaps, than existed in the days when boys and girls, not classes, were taught, but where are the individual scholars? Passing through the public schools the student, if further pursuing his studies, goes to college, and there the routine, while of a higher order is the same in principle, all class and grade individuality is lost. Do the graduates of our colleges go out as well educated as their forefathers? The average is higher, no doubt, but are they individually as well equipped for the battles of life?"
The International Competitive Exhibition at Brussels.—A great International Competition of Sciences and Industry is to be held, together with a Universal Exhibition, at Brussels, Belgium, during 1888. All products and documents meeting some want or constituting and illustrating progress, are admissible. Money-prizes, medals, and diplomas will be distributed to the value of 500,000 francs, or about $100,000. A circular in the department of "Operating of Mines" describes the subdivisions or classes in which exhibitors in that branch are invited to compete. The first includes the boring of wells and galleries, particularly in wet and loose grounds, with the best methods and appliances for the same;
