Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 23.djvu/426

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
412
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

feature of the day. It was simple, pertinent, instructive, and timely, in the considerations suggested by the completed undertaking. It is not often the happy fortune of a man to put the trimmings on a great occasion with such fine propriety as did the oratorical representative of New York in consummating its closer alliance with Brooklyn. We print this speech, and also a brief article on the statistics of the bridge, which, however, can not be authoritative and complete till the issue of the final official report.


THE TYNDALL SCHOLARSHIPS.

Dr. Lucien J. Blake returns to this country at the present vacation from Berlin, where he has been studying physics in the university laboratory of Professor Helmholtz, as a Tyndall Scholar, for the past two years. He has distinguished himself in original work, and will be prepared to take an honorable position as professor in an American college. With the resignation of Dr. Blake there will be two vacant scholarships of the Tyndall Trust Fund, the revenue of which is devoted to the aid of American students of promise who desire to obtain Continental facilities for training in physical investigation. It will be remembered that Professor Tyndall consecrated the total profits of his American lectures ten years ago to this noble object. The proceeds of those lectures, beyond the payment of necessary expenses, he refused to regard as belonging to himself, but left them as a fund in the hands of trustees to be used for the benefit of American young men of capacity and ambition, to prepare themselves for a life of original experimental work in physical science. The provision was wise as it was generous, for while, on one hand, the students of pure science are without the strong incitements of pecuniary reward for their labors, on the other hand, the encouragements to scientific study are too often in the direction of its immediate utilities. Aw r are of the strong temptation in these times to cultivate science from the lower motives, Professor Tyndall has lent the influence of his example, his teachings, and his substantial earnings to stimulate and sustain those youthful devotees of scientific truth who would pursue the work of research from the simple and elevated motive of a desire for the extension of valuable knowledge. Those wishing to obtain the benefits of the Tyndall Fund should apply to its trustees, Professor Joseph Lovering, of Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts; President F. A. P. Barnard, of Columbia College, New York; and the senior editor of this periodical.


PROGRESS AND THE HOME.

Dr. Emily Blackwell discusses the industrial position of woman in a way that appears to us especially significant at the present time. We said not long ago, "If there is one thing that pervades and characterizes what is called the 'woman's movement' it is the spirit of revolt against the home, and the determination to escape from it into the outer spheres of activity that will bring her into direct and open competition with men." This statement has been criticised as unjust; but we certainly did not mean to intimate that there may not be many women thoroughly enlisted in the "woman's movement," and who, nevertheless, retain a strong home interest. Our statement was general, and simply affirmed a widespread tendency, the unmistakable drift of which, we think, the article on "The Industrial Position of Woman" decisively illustrates.

It will be seen that Dr. Blackwell writes as a student of social tendencies. She appeals to the primitive condition of society, falls back upon the law of progress, and forecasts the results of its