NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14144, 20 August 1909, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

EDUCATION BY TRAVEL-

An interesting outgrowth of the Rhodes scheme of scholarships is to be found in the details of the movement now begun in England for the establishment of international travelling scholarships. It is an experiment, to extend over three years, at a total cost of £13,500, and to be limited during that time to the universities of the United Kingdom, America, and Canada. Should the results be satisfactory, as they appear likely to prove, and funds be obtainable in sufficient amount, the international range of the system will be extended. The arrangements in view will be controlled by two general committees, one in the United Kingdom and the other jointly acting for the universities in the United States and Canada. It is proposed to provide j 28 scholarships, 14 of which will j be available for universities in the United Kingdom, 10 for universities in the United States, and four for universities in Canada. The main purpose is to give selected' students on either side of the Atlantic, who may be destined for leadership in public life, opportunities for acquiring at the most impressionable period of their lives a personal acquaintance with kindred communities. In addition to academic qualifications the selected candidate should be what is properly known as an "all-round" man. The selection is' to be made on the lines of the Rhodes scholarships. The main objects of the. scheme are : To promote interest in Imperial, international, and domestic relations, civic and social problems, and to foster a mutual sympathy and understanding, Imperially and internationally, among students; and to promote interest in travel as an educational factor among the authorities of universities, with a view to the possibility of some kind of such training being included in the regular curricula. In explanation of the scheme, Mr. A. F. Shipley, a Cambridge master, who has taken a close interest in it, states that one of the defects of the Rhodes scholarship system is that the scholar benefited exercises little or no subsequent influence on his native university. "He travels,' says Mr. Shipley, "to England and returns, not to continue his studies in his own university, but probably (in the case of an American) to use his knowledge in Wall-street. The whole idea of the present scheme, on the other hand, is to bring a larger atmosphere into the native university, either«in the United Kingdom or on the other side of the Atlantic. The selected students will make the tour between their third and fourth years at college. They will then return and make a report on their travels. And also, by spending another year at the unij versity from which they started, they will, consciously or unconsciously, instil new knowledge and new ideas into their associates. They will be a leaven."

INTERIOR OF SOUTH AMERICA. Perhaps, on the whole, the finest place to get absolutely lost in is the interior of South America, where 300,000 square miles or so are still waiting for the first white man's foot to intrude on any one of them. Most of this lies around the watershed of the Upper Amazon and its tributaries. ■ Many, of the. names politely ascribed by the atlas to the rivers and mountains here are efforts of imagination. Only a small number have really been reached or surveyed. As two-thirds of the whole region is impenetrable forest, it is not a place to take casual strolls in; and over a dozen expeditions have either failed, been lost completely, or . wiped out by accidents of travel, in the past 40 years. The principal joys that await forthcoming expeditions are fever of a very malignant sort, armies of ants that can decimate a baggage-train, and even overwhelm and eat its proprietors, impassable cypress swamps and snakebite. The latter commodity cannot be equalled anywhere —there is no place on the globo where deadly snakes swarm to such an.extent, and hardly any of them permit the least hope of life, after a bite. The fed-de-lance, water moccasin, and a dozen others are particularly plentiful; and, by way of variety, the anaconda, champion of the world in the constricting and bone-smashing line, is abundant in the forests. Even the —mainly harmless forest Indians— no notion of the way about, but all places are alike to them. They have been known to bring i gold dust down from places which they cannot or do not want to describe.

' WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY.

There is at last a prospect that the commercial returns from wireless telegraphy will soon be something like proportionate to the services which the system renders at sea, and as a news carrier between America and the United Kingdom. The directors of the Marconi Company state, in their latest report, that the prospects and position of the company are now highly satisfactory and promising, and they confidently anticipate that the divi-dend-paying period will be speedily entered upon. They add :"The remunerative business is extending in every direction. Economies have been effected wherever such have been possible. Expenses have been cut down in all directions, and the field of profitable operation is steadily and persistently extending throughout the world. The directors feel that the difficulties always attending the development of so great and novel an enterprise as this are at last yielding to the results of knowledge and experience, and profitable returns are now well within sight."