THE EXTENSION OF SCIENTIFIC TEACHING. 459 



tical instruction in any branch of experimental or observational science, 

 except anatomy, was to be had in this country ; and when there was 

 no such thing as a physical, chemical, biological, or geological labora- 

 tory open to the students of any university, or to the pupils of any 

 school, in the three kingdoms. Nor was there any university which 

 recognized science as a faculty, nor a school, public or private, in which 

 scientific instruction was represented by much more than the occasional 

 visit of a vagrant orrery. 



At the present moment, any one who desires to obtain a thoroughly 

 scientific training has a choice among a dozen institutions ; and ele- 

 mentary scientific instruction is, so to speak, brought to the doors of 

 the poorer classes. If the rich are debarred from like advantages, it 

 is their own affair ; but even the most careful public-school education 

 does not now wholly exclude the knowledge that there is such a thing 

 as science from the mind of a young English gentleman. If science is 

 not allowed a fair share of the children's bread, it is at any rate per- 

 mitted to pick up the crumbs which fall from the time-table, and that 

 is a great deal more than I once hoped to see in my lifetime. 



I have followed precedent in leading you to the point at which it 

 might be fair, as it certainly would be customary, to end by congratu- 

 lating you, as Fellows of the Royal Society, on the past progress and 

 the future prospects of the work which, for two centuries, it has been 

 the aim of the society to forward. But it will perhaps be more profit- 

 able to consider that which remains to be done for the advancement of 

 science than to " rest and be thankful " in the contemplation of that 

 which has been done. 



In all human affairs the irony of Fate plays a part, and, in the midst 

 of our greatest satisfactions, " surgit amari aliquid." I should have 

 been disposed to account for the particular drop of bitterness to which 

 I am about to refer, by the sexagenarian state of mind, were it not 

 that I find the same complaint in the mouths of the young and vigor- 

 ous. Of late years it has struck me, with constantly increasing force, 

 that those who have toiled for the advancement of science are in a fair 

 way of being overwhelmed by the realization of their wishes. We are 

 in the case of Tarpeia, who opened the gates of the Roman citadel to 

 the Sabines, and was crushed under the weight of the reward bestowed 

 upon her. It has become impossible for any man to keep pace with 

 the progress of the whole of any important branch of science. If he 

 were to attempt to do so, his mental faculties would be crushed by the 

 multitudes of journals and of voluminous monographs which a too fer- 

 tile press casts upon him. This was not the case in my young days. 

 A diligent reader might then keep fairly informed of all that was 

 going on, without robbing himself of leisure for original work, and 

 without demoralizing his faculties by the accumulation of unassimi- 

 lated information. It looks as if the scientific, like other revolutions, 

 meant to devour its own children ; as if the growth of science tended 



