NOTES 477 



a serious situation. The national call for recruits has largely- 

 depleted the number of their students and younger graduates, 

 their income from fees is correspondingly diminished, and the 

 Treasury Commissioners are now advising a reduction in the 

 State grants for university education, the closing down of 

 departments, and the disbanding of teaching staffs, wherever 

 possible. Of course the need for national economy is urgent, 

 but education, especially in its scientific and technical aspects, 

 should be one of the last things to be stinted. To run the risk 

 of disorganising university education and research for the sake 

 of saving a comparatively small sum of money would surely 

 prove a false economy in the end. Before the war, the United 

 Kingdom had only 23,000 whole-time students in universities 

 and technical institutes as compared with 90,000 students of 

 collegiate grade in the United States, and 71,000 matriculated 

 students in German Universities. 1 These figures may be takem 

 as a rough index of the value that each nation places on higher 

 education and scientific training. Allowing for differences im 

 total population, it means that the United States and Germany 

 each had between two and three times as many university 

 students as the United Kingdom. 



The nation is awakening to the tremendous part that applied 

 science is playing in the war. Does it yet realise that in the 

 industrial and commercial struggle that must inevitably follow 

 the war, science will play an equally important part ? If we 

 are adequately to meet the needs of the future, we must educate 

 in natural science a far larger proportion of the youth of the 

 nation than we have done hitherto. This is essential in order 

 to make good our deficiencies in the past and to replace those 

 who fall in the war. 



It is to be hoped, then, that the Government, which has 



recognised, in this new scheme, the importance to the nation 



of scientific and industrial research, will do all that may be 



possible during the continuance of the war to increase science 



teaching in our schools and to assist our universities and 



colleges through a difficult time, so that they may be ready, 



when peace returns, for all developments of scientific education 



and research that may be required to meet the needs of our 



great industries. 



1 Prof. R. A. Gregory, Ninth Annual Report of the British Science Guild : 

 Appendix F. 



