"When we come into this world we have a pair of quite thoughtless brains and nothing more. To become intelligent beings, we must acquire a whole host of mental faculties and endowments, not one of which does a human being bring with him at birth. No one was ever born speaking English nor any other language. No newly born babe knows anything by sight nor by any other sense. Every kind of knowledge has to be gained by personal education. But only recently have we found that this education necessitates the creation of a local anatomical change in brain matter to make it the special seat for that 'accomplishment.' Thus, no one can become a skilled violin player until by long fashioning he has at last made. a violin-playing place in his cerebrum.

"But all this brain fashioning takes so much time and trouble that for mere

economy of labor, as one hemisphere will do all that is necessary, the individual spends his efforts on one of them only. As both hemispheres are equally good for this purpose, which of the two he will educate depends on which one he begins with. This is settled for him when as a child he begins all his training by the hand that he then most easily uses. Hence it is that all the speech centers and all the knowing and educated places are to be found only in the left hemisphere of the right-handed, and in the right hemisphere of the lefthanded."

SUCCESSOR OF THE "STUFFED" ANIMAL.

Animals are no longer "stuffed" for exhibitions in museums. This process never did produce a lifelike result, and the unnatural appearance of a stuffed animal or bird has become proverbial. Nowadays the skin is drawn over a carefully modeled plaster cast made by an artist in animal sculpture, with results of astonishing beauty. Says Roy C. Andrews, writing in Forest and Stream.

"When an animal is received at the Museum of Natural History, an elaborate series of measurements are at once taken from it in the flesh. These are of invaluable assistance in the final work of mounting. Next the taxidermist,

equipped with modeling wax and tools, goes to the Zoological Park and makes a miniature model of the animal from the living specimen there. This small model is prepared with great care, and the anatomy of each part is worked out to the minutest detail. It is here that the real genius of the modeler is shownif he be an artist worthy of the name, he can put into the animal the result of his study and observation, and give it all the grace and beauty of life, with none of the stiffness of a mechanical structure. After the small model has been completed, the leg-bones and skull of the specimen to be mounted are placed in position and wired; thus the general outline of the animal is given, and the basis of the life-sized model formed, exactly as a sculptor makes an armature for a large figure. On this framework or skeleton wet clay is piled, until the mass corresponds in some degree to the measurements taken from the animal in the flesh, and then the artist begins with his modeling tools to bring order out of chaos. Every part of the body is studied with the utmost care, and every layer of muscle, every cord and tendon is reproduced exactly as it lies in a living animal. The sculptor has the whole body under his control at once, for the legs and neck are wired tightly and can be moved at will. From time to time the skin of the animal is tried on over the clay body to insure an exact fit, and any imperfections in the model are corrected.

"When the manikin fits exactly, the last touches are given, and there stands on the pedestal a perfect animal minus. the skin, for every layer of muscle and every cord is there, placed with the knowledge of a scientist and the skill of an artist. A plaster mold is then taken of the clay model, from which a cast is made. This cast is very thin, and is lined with burlap, to combine strength and durability with the minimum of weight. The clay model is now discarded and the cast allowed to dry, after which it is drest with shellac to make it waterproof, and finally given a coat of glue. Then the skin is adjusted and the seams neatly sewed up with strong

waxed twine. Contrary to the general idea, the ears, nose, and eyes are left until the last, and are carefully worked out in papier mache. This is at once one of the most difficult and interesting parts of the work, for the delicate lines of the nostrils and the modeling of the eyes require the utmost skill and closest study. In the eye lies the whole expression of the face, and the animal is made or marred by this one detail. After the finishing touches have have been given, the specimen is set away to dry preparatory to being placed in the particular group for which it may have been designed."

This new process has been so successful, the writer tells us, that the time-honored custom of "stuffing" has been forced out of existence by the superior results of the manikin. Now it is "animal sculpture." He says:

"We are at the climax, at the end of the long process of evolution, through which taxidermy has gradually worked its way. Just as painting developed from the rude attempts of the prehistoric man to the wonderful creations of the old masters, so has taxidermy prepared itself for the new era now opening before it.

"And as in the work there has been an evolution, so must there be an evolution in the name-it is taxidermy no longer, it is 'animal sculpture.' To the average mind the name taxidermy pictures the stuffed animal of many years ago-stuffed in the true sense of the word. The day is not far distant when the term 'taxidermist' shall have become obsolete in the English language."

* * * UNIVERSITY CORRESPONDENCE COURSES.

The Evening Wisconsin, of Milwaukee, thus describes the efforts of the State University to broaden its influence

by the introduction of correspondence

courses.

The University of Wisconsin is embarked upon an enterprise destined to bring it into very close touch with the people of the State when it established its correspondence courses. The short course in agriculture is brilliant with practical results, but even what the University has accomplished by its short course in agriculture will be eclipsed by what it will achieve for the benefit of the people at large if it continues to carry on the correspondence courses in the spirit in which it has begun.

The number of correspondence courses so far established is upward of one hundred and sixty. Many of them deal with technical education in a way that promises to more than make up to the boy who must work for a living the opportunity which was taken from him by the abandonment of the apprentice system. Many a boy ambitious to learn a mechanical trade is taking a correspondence course at the University with the certainty that he can advance himself in the line of his ambition, becoming a master of the principles underlying his work as well as an adept in their practical application.

For those desiring subsequently to enter the University the credits earned in completing a correspondence course count half toward securing a university degree. It is no wonder that the opportunity offered by tunity offered by the correspondence courses is enlisting the interest of earnest young men and women thruout the State.

There is no reason why a university owned by the people of a State should be held back from serving them in any way possible by the lack of academic precedent. If it serves, it needs further justification.

no

Prof. Le Roy C. Cooley has retired from the department of physics, under the law of Vassar College regarding age limit, and is the first one to be recommended by the board of trustees for a pension on the Carnegie Foundation. Alfred Dodge Cole, who has been professor of physics in the Ohio State University since 1901, has been appointed to the position. Professor Cole was graduated from Brown University in 1884. Prof. George B. Shattuck has been appointed professor of geology and mineralogy on the John Guy Vassar Foundation, in place of Prof. Prof. William William B. Dwight, deceased. Dr. Shattuck was graduated from Amherst in 1892. Professor Mills has been granted a year's leave of absence. The trustees have apto take pointed Dr. J. M. Williams charge of a portion of Professor Mills' work with the title of lecturer. Dr. Williams is a graduate of Brown University, class of 1898.

In the resignation of Prof. Elijah Paddock Harris, head of the chemistry department, Amherst College loses one of the oldest members of its faculty. For thirty-nine years he has been connected with the college. He was born in 1832 at Le Roy, N. Y., attended Luna Seminary and Genesee College and then was graduated from Amherst in 1855.

After a year or two of teaching he went to the University of Gottingen, where he received his doctor's degree. Later he taught at Victoria College and Beloit until 1868, when he went to Amherst.

Professor Harris is the author of a work on meteorites, manual of qualitative-analysis, non-metallic chemistry, and lecture notes on general chemistry. He was given the degree of LL.D. by Victoria College in 1890. He will receive an annual pension of $2,200 for life under the Carnegie fund.

Associate Prof. Arthur J. Hopkins succeeds to the head of the department.

Professor Schuchert, head of Peabody Museum, will begin with two assistants an extensive geological excursion early next month, and lasting through most of the vacation. The party will examine the coast formations and the marl beds of New Jersey; then the Appalachian Mountain formations of west Maryland, above Harper's Ferry, followed by the investigation of the fossils of the Devonian and Silurian Age in west Tennessee. The final work of the expedition will be in the Arbuckle Mountains of Oklahoma, tracing the sequence of geological formations.

* *

Dr. D. E. Mitchell has resigned the Presidency of Cumberland University, Lebanon, Tenn., his resignation taking effect at once. Dr. Mitchell's business relations have made it necessary for him to be away from Lebanon the greater part of the time for the last two years, and he is now in Pittsburg, Pa.

*

He

Dr. George E. Vincent, dean of the University of Chicago junior colleges, has been appointed to be dean of the faculties of arts. literature and science. will have charge of the university's administrative details, assuming the position lately vacated by President Harry Pratt Judson.

Chancellor D. W. C. Huntington of the Nebraska Wesleyan University has presented his resignation to the board of trustees to take effect in one year. He resigned last year but was prevailed upon by the board to continue till the end of the present school year.

* * *

Dr. William Coe Collar is retiring afafter 50 years as the head of the Roxbury (Mass.) Latin school. Dr. Collar will travel abroad this summer and on his return will probably take up his residence in Cambridge.

* * *

Elmer J. McCormick, for several years assistant professor of civil engin

eering at Cornell, has resigned to accept the chair of mining engineering in the University of Alabama.

*

Professor Arthur Fairbanks of the University of Michigan is to be the new head of the Museum of Fine Arts, at Boston. Professor Fairbanks was born Nov. 13, 1864, at Hanover, N. H. He graduated at St. Johnsbury (Vt.) Academy and Dartmouth College, studied at the Yale Divinity School and the Union Theological Seminary, and received a degree of doctor of philosophy at Frieburg in Vereisgau in 1890. He was for six years professor of Greek at the University of Iowa. He resigned that position to accept a similar though more m portant one at the University of Michigan a year ago. He will leave Ann Arbor in the autumn to begin his work in Boston. His salary will be $8,000 a year.

* * *

Professor J. Newton Pearce of Northwestern University, has been elected assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Iowa. Mr. Pearce, who has been an instructor in chemistry, recently received a degree of doctor of philosophy from Johns Hopkins University.

* *

Dr. Walter L. Fleming of the University of West Virginia has accepted the chair of history at the Louisiana State University.

Dr. Fleming is a native of Alabama, graduated at the Alabama Polytechnic Institute (Auburn) as B. S. in 1896, as M. S. in 1897; at Columbia University, New York, as M. A. in 1901, and as Ph. D. in 1904. Between the years of 1896 and 1904 he was for a time assistant professor and librarian at Auburn, fellow in American history at Columbia, associate professor of history at Columbia; and since 1904 has been professor of history at the University of West Virginia. He is publishing a series of volumes on the history of the Reconstruction period in the South. His history of the civil war and Reconstruction in Alabama was published in 1905, and his documentary history of Reconstruction in two volumes was published in 1906-7. These

works have been most favorably received by the critics.

Dr. Fleming is also one of the editors of the Historians' History of the World, and has a long list of articles to his credit in the proceedings of the historical associations and in leading magazines.

** * *

Professor Hugo Munsterberg, professor of psychology at Harvard, is to receive the honorary degree of doctor of literature from Lafayette College at the Professor Lafayette commencement. Munsterberg already holds the degrees of doctor of philosophy, doctor of medicine, and doctor of laws.

* * *

William Herbert Carruth, vice president of the faculties and professor of German at the University of Kansas, has been granted a year's leave of absence which he will spend in Germany in study and research. Professor Carruth is widely known through his text books. in German.

* * *

Dr. L. H. Blanton, who has been Vice President of the Central University of Kentucky, Danville, Ky., for the past fifty years, has resigned. His successor has not yet been appointed. Dr. Blanton is seventy-four years of age, and has actively attended to the duties of his office.

* * *

It is officially announced that the War Department has detailed Capt. L. S. Sorley of the Fourth United States Infantry to succeed Capt. A. C. Read as commandant of cadets and professor of military science at the Louisiana State University. Capt. Sorley's home is in Galveston, Tex. veston, Tex. He was for two years a student at the University of Texas before receiving his appointment to West. Point.

*

The board of trustees of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, Auburn, Ala., have created a chair of architecture and drawing and elected Prof. N. C. Curre, of the University of North Carolina, to fill the chair. He graduated in architecture at Columbia and has been for four years. professor of architecture at the University of North Carolina.

At a meeting of the executive committee of the board of trustees of Howard University, Washington, D. C., the resignation of the Rev. Dr. F. W. Fairfield, for more than twenty years dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, was presented and accepted. Dr. Fairfield has been placed upon the Carnegie foundation and granted a liberal allowance for the remainder of his life, in view of his extended and efficient services in the interests of higher education.

The board unanimously elected as his successor in the professorship the Rev. Dr. Edward L. Parks, an educator of

long experience and distinction. An honored graduate of the Northwestern University, he was for seven years an instructor in that institution. Called to the presidency of Simpson College, in Iowa, he raised and paid a crushing debt, broadened and enriched the courses of study, increased the faculty, and more than doubled the attendance of students in the six years of his presidency. He was then called to a professorship in Gammon Theological Seminary, in Atlanta, where he served for fourteen years, winning the confidence and esteem of all students under his charge.

* * *

Edward Capps of the University of Chicago was elected professor of classics at Princeton University; Assistant Prof. D. R. Stuart was advanced to a full professorship in classics; Assistant Prof. Christian Gauss to a full professorship in modern languages; LeRoy C. Barret, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins, and Austin M. Harmon, A.M., Williams, were elected preceptors in classics for one year; Regis Michaud of Columbia University was elected preceptor in modern languages for one year; N. E. Griffin was reelected preceptor in English for one year; and a number of instructors were appointed. These resignations were accepted: Jesse Benedict Carter, professor of Latin, now head of the American School of Classical Studies at Rome; Edwin Seelye Lewis, professor of modern languages.

* *

Prof. Harry Gilbert of the University of Iowa college of law has resigned to go to the University of Illinois college of law. He is a brother of Attorney William C. Gilbert of Chicago and a nephew of the late Judge David J. Baker, of the Illinois Supreme bench.

* **

Prof. Warren T. Clark, professor of entomology at the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, Auburn, Ala., has submitted his resignation and it was accepted. He goes to accept a more lucrative chair at the University of California.

* *

Prof. G. W. Snedecor of Tuscaloosa, Ala., has been elected to fill the chair of mathematics in Austin College, Sher