WORLD-WIDE NOTES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 496, 31 August 1912, Page 7

WORLD-WIDE NOTES.

Individual failings will be considered in the educational system of the future. Inability to learn to spell has come to he regarded as due to peculiar Drain organisation—a lack in the brain centre for the memory of words—and it has been found that in every 2,000 children in London schools there is one case of serious "word blind».ess." As such pupils may be highly intelligent, special training seems to be needed to make the most of their faculties. A German report mentions a family which has had not less than four wordblind members. A perfectly healthy girl of fifteen, who had gained high rank at school, could not spell ordinary words, either from dictation or memory. She could write single characters correctly, and could read single series of musical notes and play the violin by note, but she could not read piano music. Through various aids to memory she gained high general scholarship, though her errors in writing and even in reading were almost incredible. The same inability to receive any mental impression of words existed in her grandmother, a woman of much education, and in her great uncle and a son of the latter.

When Lord Cochrane was made a middy in the Navy, and went on board the ship where he was to live and work, he had with him a wood '.ox in which were all his clothes and' :hings. It was only a small box, but when the chief officer of the ship ;aw it he. grumbled very much and ordered the carpenter to saw a lump off the box to make; it less, and while Lord Cochrane was down below looking round the cabin in which he was to sleep, all his things were scatter--2d about the deck so that the carpenter could make the box as little as the chief officer wanted it !

When Lord Cochrane went back on to the deck and saw all his things upset like that he was very much surprised. But he laughed and took it all in good part, and when the box had been altered, he put his things into it and had it carried into; his cabin. The chief officer was pleased at Lord Cochrane's good temper,. and ever afterwards they were very great friends.

One of the greatest additions to :.he pleasure-and convenience of night motoring is an improved electric lighting system recently perfected ibroad. By means of- it a greatly

increased efficiency for all the lights }f the car is secured, as well as a much safer and more convenient system than has heretofore been employed. The system in question consists of a small multi-polar generator having a positive drive from the engine, and is contained under the same hood. Besides this, a device known as a load regulator and a small storage battery are required. The generator, which runs upon ball bearings, and weighs but twenty-four pounds, is capable of producing the required current, even on a slow speed of the engine, to light all the regular equipment of lamps. It also iurnishea the ignition spark for the jngine. If running at a high speed Dr when the engine is being operated ree of the machine, the load regulator comes into play, diverting the axcess current generated into the storage battery, and thus keeping it at all times fully charged and able to supply the necessary current for the lamps when the machine is standing idle. It is unnecessary for the chauffeur to leave his seat in the machine, either to light or adjust the lamps, or to ascertain the amount of current being generated ay the battery. An instrument located directly in front of him gives all the necessary information.

Mr. William L. Finley has been studying the ways of those miraculous creatures, the humming birds. he says : "I often wondered how these tiny creatures learned to fly. When the

time comes, they sesm to spring into the air full grown and fully equipped. By watching at the humming bird nest, I finally learned the reason. Tho youngsters took their turns sitting on the nest edge, stretching their wings, combing their tails, and preening their feathers. Each would try his wings. The wings started slowly, as if getting up steam. Then they buzzed till they fairly lifted the bird off his feet. In this way they practised many times a day, bo that, when the time was ripe, the breaking of home ties simply meant two buzzing streaks."

Thomas A. Edison was discussing with a reporter a criticism of his wonderful storage battery. "The criticism is very laudatory," he said, "'but it is the opposite of scientific. It really makes me think of a dialogue I once heard in a museum. Two young men stood gazing at a mummy. ''What makes him look so brown, and! dried-up-like, all the way through, Bill?' the first young man asked. Bill replied with this scientific information—ln them days, George, they took the blokes they killed in battle and kippered 'em for export to the cannibal trade.' "

Senator La Follette was talking of a notorious financier the other day. "He got rather a setback in a talk he had last session with one of his auditors. 'Money ?' he said. 'Bah ! There are thousands of ways of making money.' 'Yes, but only one honest way,' our man remarked. 'What way's that ?' 'I thought you wouldn't know it,' was the reply."