SCIENTISTS IN CONGRESS.

Auckland Star, Volume XL, Issue 204, 27 August 1909, Page 5

SCIENTISTS IN CONGRESS.

UNIVERSITY SYSTEMS. PREMATURE SPECIALISATION. OTTAWA, August 20. There was an enormous attendance at the opening meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Winnipeg yesterday. Sir Joseph J. Thomßon, Professor of Experimental Physics at Cambridge and the Royal Institution, London, and winner of the Nobel prize for Physics in 1006, president of the Association, in his inaugural address, commenting on tha Jistinctive features of older universities, declared that tbe chief evil noticeable at Dambridge was the extensive competition for scholarships. The colleges at Cambridge gave upwards of £35,000 a year in scholarships. He supposed the cape wm much the same at Oxford, and this led to excessive and premature specialisation. Continuing, be emphasised the value of mathematics to the physicist, and the closer union qf the two -He advocated a further development of tbe exchange of students, between univerutios, and reviewed the irtp%4y-4>»o*v«Tia«----)f physicists during, the past five years.