THE ENDOWMENT OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. 443 



erally wherever state maiutenance has been provided for work which 

 before had been carried on independently of tlie government, suggests 

 that tlie wisest course would be to proceed tentatively. It is almost 

 certain that any general scheme formed at the present time would 

 hereafter have to be greatly modified, if not altogether abandoned. 

 The time, indeed, has not yet arrived when the nation would look 

 with satisfaction on any wide scheme of scientific endowment even if 

 Parliament could be persuaded to make adequate grants for such a 

 scheme, or to authorize the employment for that purpose of funds 

 available at the two universities. As to the action of our legislators, 

 it may be remarked that possibly a favorable vote might be secured, 

 if the more earnest supporters of endowment (who have shown con- 

 siderable strategic skill in pushing their schemes) should choose a 

 convenient season and convenient hours for bringing the matter be- 

 fore Parliament. But it is to be hoped that science will not be de- 

 graded by a line of action implying that the endowment of science 

 requires to be urged as cautiously in Parliament as an act relating 

 to contagious diseases. The most liberal grant would be dearly pur- 

 chased by the disgrace which such a proceeding would bring upon 

 science. 



The nation is probably willing to see experiments made on the 

 effect of endowment for special scientific purposes. If such experi- 

 ments were made, we should gradually perceive whether wider schemes 

 were likely to be advantageous to science, or whether dangers may not 

 lurk in all such schemes. It might be found that endowment would 

 tend greatly to increase the number of those entering on scientific 

 pursuits, while widening also the range of scientific culture. It might 

 be found, as some assert, that endowment would give the younger 

 men a better chance of making good progress than they at present 

 possess. Or, on the other hand, it might be found that the national 

 endowment of science would tend only to advance scientific Micawber- 

 ism, and that the real workers in science would be discouraged by 

 seeing all the best rewards given for pretentious novelties, clever 

 adaptations perhaps of their own discoveries. That, too, which Her- 

 bert Spencer has described as " the rule of all services, civil, military, 

 naval, or other," might be found to operate with the scientific service 

 also the rule, namely, of " putting young ofticials under old," with 

 its necessary " effect of placing the advanced ideas and wider knowl- 

 edge of a new generation under control of the ignorance and bigotry of 

 a generation to which change has become repugnant." This, " which 

 is a seemingly ineradicable vice of public organizations, is a vice to 

 which private organizations are far less liable; since, in the life-and- 

 death struggle of competition, merit, even if young, takes the place 

 of demerit, even if old." 



It appears to me that those who really desire the advancement of 

 science cannot too carefully or cautiously weigh the schemes now rife 



