air,' 'to travel at speeds higher than any with which we are familiar.'
The secretary of the Smithsonian Institution should be the representative of American science and should be extremely careful not to do anything that may lend itself to an interpretation that will bring injury on the scientific work of the government or of the country. Dr. Langley has stated that for 'the commercial and practical development of the idea it is probable that the world may look to others.' We think that it would have been better if the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution had adhered to this resolution and had not spent large sums on secret experiments for the War Department. He could have placed his scientific knowledge at the disposal of army officers and expert mechanicians, and this would have been better than to attempt to become an inventor in a field where success is doubtful and where failure is likely to bring discredit, however undeserved, on scientific work.
SCIENTIFIC ITEMS.
Professor Alexander Bain, for many years professor of logic in the University of Aberdeen, died on September 17, at the age of eighty-five years. Dr. Bain was the author of an important series of books on psychology, logic and English. His works on 'The Senses and the Intellect,' in 1855, and 'The Emotions and the Will,' in 1859, in many ways laid the foundations of modern scientific psychology.
Dr. W. A. Notes, of the Rose Polytechnic Institute, has accepted the position of chemist in the National Bureau of Standards.—Professor J. Mark Baldwin, of Princeton University, has been called to organize a graduate department of philosophy and psychology at the Johns Hopkins University.—Dr. T. H. Montgomery, Jr., assistant professor of zoology at the University of Pennsylvania, has been appointed to the professorship of zoology in the University of Texas, vacant by the removal of Professor W M. Wheeler to the American Museum of Natural History. Dr. Herbert S. Jennings, assistant professor of zoology at the University of Michigan, and now at Naples, has been called to the assistant professorship of zoology at the University of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Robert E. Peary has been given three years' leave of absence from the navy to continue his Arctic explorations. His plan contemplates the construction of a strong wooden ship with powerful machinery, in which he will sail next July to Cape Sabine and, after establishing a sub-base there, force his way northward to the northern shore of Grant Land, where he will spend the winter with a colony of Whale Sound Esquimaux, who will be taken there by him from their homes further south. This winter base will be at or in the vicinity of Cape Columbia or Cape Joseph Henry, situated about the 82d degree of north latitude.
The new medical buildings and laboratories of Toronto University were officially opened on October 1. The opening address was given by Professor Charles S. Sherrington, of Liverpool. Speeches were made by representatives of various institutions, and an address in the evening was made by Professor William Osier, of the Johns Hopkins University. A special convocation was held on October 2, at which the following visitors received the honorary degree of LL.D. from the university: William Williams Keen, Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia; William Henry Welch, Johns Hopkins University; William Osier, Johns Hopkins University; Russell Henry Chittenden, Yale University; Charles S. Sherrington, University of Liverpool; Henry Pickering Bowditch, Harvard University.
