Brown and White Vol. 9 no. 42

              on last friday afternoon dr macfarlane delivered the fourth of his series of lectures on mathe maticians of the nineteenth cen tury he had as his subject james joseph sylvester and this was in some respects the most interesting of the lectures so far delivered besides the student body many of the faculty were present at the lec ture which was delivered in the lecture room of the chemical laboratory the lecture was in part as fol lows : james joseph sylvester was born in london on the third of septem ber 1814 by birth he was a jew and throughout his life he adhered to the religion of his race he received his preparatory in struction at private school and early displayed an aptitude for mathe matics entering st john's col lege cambridge he distinguished himself in mathematics and won the place of second wrangler on ac count of being a jew he could not take his degree and was for the same reason debarred from compet ing for either of the smith prizes on leaving cambridge sylvester became professor of natural phi losophy at university college lon don leaving here he went to the united states in 1841 and was pro fessor of mathematics at the uni versity of virginia for four years his connection with this university had rather an abrupt termination on account of some trouble with a stu dent in which blood was drawn on both sides sylvester leaving for england immediately after ten years later he became pro fessor of mathematics at the mili tary academy at woolwich this position he filled until he was re tired at the age of fifty-five years in 876 he was invited to the chair of mathematics in the johns hopkins university just founded where he remained until 1883 when he returned to england in order to take the position of savilian pro fessor of geometry at oxford uni versity he died in london on march 14th 1897 at the age of eighty three sylvester was of a passionate temperament quick tempered and combative he refused to speak on several public occasions because he had no opponent to arouse him to eloquence he was not at all or derly in his mathematical work and his printers found it almost impos sible to decipher his papers with their many foot-notes and appended explanations he was the founder of the american journal of mathe matics and wrote besides for many other mathematical papers in the latter part of his life he received the degree which had earl continued on sixth page lehigh was victorious in the de bate with the moravian theological seminary which was held last thursday evening in christmas hall talley 04 and morgan 04 were the represtntatives of lehigh and made excellent arguments their opponents were older and more experienced talkers being theological students but lehigh was given the decision on account of the greater number of points ad vanced gross and stocker were the speakers from the moravian college and had evidently thor oughly prepared their arguments which were delivered in a forceful manner a large audience was pres ent dr drown presided over the debate the question was : re solved that congress should estab lish a system of ship-subsidy and lehigh had the affirmative side talley of lehigh was the first speaker and besides outlining the plan of debate for his side he dis cussed the various means which had been advocated to increase the mer chant marine of this country spec ial attention was paid to the advan tages and disadvantages for this purpose of discriminating duties bounties free ships and ship subsi dies he attempted to prove that all plans but that of ship-subsidy were impracticable stocker opened the debate for the moravian college and argued in favor of the repeal of the existing navigation laws and gave a num ber of means by which he claimed the merchant marine of the country could be restored to the place it held in 1 86 1 when it was greater than that of great britain he claimed that the ship-subsidy bill would take money out of the people in taxes to give it to millionaries of the country morgan 04 was the second speaker for lehigh and in his argu ment developed the advantages of the ship-subsidy bill as a means of increasing the merchant marine of the country he claimed that if the shipping of the country was pro tected as the manufacturers had been it would now be much greater than it is other advantages would be that ocean freight rates would be lower and trade would be developed with the philippines and the orient a very large part of the profits made in this way it was claimed would go to the american farmer and mechanic mr gross of the moravian col lege dealt especially with the way shipsubsidy meausres had operated in other countries notably france as to remedying existing evils he quoted senator spooner that a sys tem of discriminating duties would be the best plan he also advo cated a tonnage tax which would have this advantage over a subsidy continued on fifth page axt tvl ist i 3xt xj 3mc ber the brown and white lehigh university south bethlehem pa wednesday march 26 1902 calendar university lecture fourth of mathemati cal series given current notes vol ix debate lehigh vs moravian theological seminary wednesday march 26 — at 5 52 a m base ball team glee and mandolin clubs leave philadel phia and reading depot for washington at 12.30 p m college closes for the easter holidays at 3 p m base ball game with georgetown at georgetown at 8 p m glee and mandolin club concert at washington thursday april 3 — at 7.45 a m easter vacation ends notices april sth at 2 p m is ap pointed for physics examination of sophomores and juniors who have been granted a special re-examina tion with fee april 10th is the date of the next civil engineering smoker southern trip engineering societies during the present college year the civil mechanical and electrical engineering societies have been re vived and it is to be hoped that they will continue to flourish these so cieties play a very important part in a technical training it is here a student learns to present in an inter esting and intelligible manner the results of careful observation ex perience gained in vacation work or ir work done before entering col lege or a visit to some striking en gineering project furnishes a sub ject for a report not only are a habit of observation and a facility of expression cultivated but an esprit de corps is fostered among students in the same department the re ports read an hour is spent socially and students and instructors learn to know each other in a manner which is impossible in the class room good feeling and good fel lowship result and an evening is spent pleasantly and profitably at an educational institution without a dormitory system it is essential that bodies of students be brought together occasionally for social pur poses and these occasions should be clean and wholesome dormitories the questions are frequently asked will lehigh ever have dor mitories ?" and are dormitories de sirable at lehigh ?" money is seek ing profitable investment and a little figuring would seem to show that dormitories would furnish a safe and a profitable investment some iay money and this investment will find each other and dormitories will become a possibility are they de sirable when the number of stu dents at lehigh was small all reci tations could be scheduled in the morning hours and nearly all the students could live in the immediate vicinity of the college grounds now it is necessary as at other in stitutions to schedule recitations at all hours from 8 a m to 5 p m with one hour at noon for luncheon and students live in all parts of bethlehem and south bethlehem recitations lectures laboratories drawing rooms gymnasium ath letics and engineering societies re quire the presence of students on the university grounds nearly all day and frequently in the evening the need of dormitories was never greater than at present the ob stacles to be overcome in installing a dormitory system after student life has adapted itself to present conditions are not small but the ad vantages of a dormitory system are now so evident that the obstacles could be overcome the base ball team glee and mandolin clubs will start for the south early wednesday morning this year the mandolin and glee clubs will accompany the base ball team on its southern tour owing to the fact that considerable money was cleared at the joint concert with the university of pennsylvania and that several individuals have made personal loans to the clubs they are enabled to do this following is a list of the men who intend to take the trip : base ball team lilley 03 capt ; taylor 04 lewis 03 reese 03 eisenhart 03 ; kinne 05 ; brush 05 ; lltm ler 05 ; de schweinitz 02 ; landep feld 05 ; schuler 05 ; carr 05 coach mandolin clubs first mandolins — daniels 02 leader ; strauss 04 ; sterner 03 ; lattig 03 register 05 foun tain 06 second mandolins herman 04 ; troxell 05 ; clawson 05 ; balston 05 ; morgan 03 ' flute — brown 04 guitars — higgins 02 ; leroux 02 ; tracy 04 ; mac lean 05 ; read 05 glee club . first tenors miller 96 stull 03 ; dief enderf er 03 ; leroux 02 second tenor — reese 03 lead er ; mussina 04 johnson 04 payne 05 corsa 05 first bass — mendoza o2;geare 04 tracy 04 clawson 05 second bass — bird 02 daniel 02 graham 03 lattig 03 sheesley 05 e mowlds ex-'0,5 is engineer of the edgemore branch of the american bridge co edgemore del l f castleman c e 95 is en gineer of the trenton branch of the american bridge co trenton c f townsend b si 95 has recently returned to the employ of brown & yon beren architects in new haven having been for sev eral months with the bradley & hubbard mfg co meridan conn no 42