322 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



nation producing great work, men of high intellect and character, 

 and men who prefer to serve the world rather than to serve 

 themselves ; or to be a nation of politicians, of persons who try 

 to obtain wealth without labour, of those who look only to the 

 main chance, of trumpery journalism, a contemptible stage, 

 cinematograph shows, public-houses, silly processions, super- 

 stitions which call themselves religion, and streets full of untidy 

 loafers with cigarettes in their mouths. We have not yet quite 

 sunk to the latter level, but the efforts of our politicians before 

 the war were perhaps largely tending in that direction. There 

 is, however, a power above politicians which controls these 

 affairs ; and the evolution that has moulded man in the past 

 will know which of these two ideals must be selected for the 

 future. 



The Board of Education's Scheme 



Although the memorandum of the Board of Education 

 outlining its plan for the organisation of scientific research 

 was published as long ago as last July, we still desire to reserve 

 our full comments upon it until we can learn more about the 

 details. While warmly welcoming the movement (for which 

 we have always appealed) and while wishing it every success, 

 we feel it our duty to remark that it appears to contain no pro- 

 vision for instituting the best, and perhaps the only real, 

 method for encouraging discovery as distinct from investiga- 

 tion — and the two things are quite different. Prima facie, 

 the Board of Education's Scheme is one for the cultivation 

 rather of petty science than of Science. It proposes to devote 

 a Parliamentary grant of (we understand) £25,000 a year for 

 the purpose, this being administered by a Committee of the 

 Privy Council, consisting principally of the inevitable party 

 politicians, advised by another committee of men of science. 

 The money is to be expended upon instituting specific researches, 

 developing existing institutions, and awarding research 

 studentships. The last item we frankly object to, because, as 

 frequently pointed out, they are mere baits to lure the young 

 and inexperienced into paths which may appear flowery enough 

 at first but which will in later life prove to lead into the deserts 

 of scholastic poverty. No — we see in all this only a repetition 

 of the old ideas, so popular in Britain, for creating discoverers 

 on a salary of one or two hundred a year ; for by the Scheme 



