VIII UNIVERSITIES: ACTUAL AND IDEAL 225 



ing and Sculpture, in aid of the Man of Letters, or 

 the Artist, or for the mere sake of affording pleas- 

 ure to the general public. I apprehend that it can- 

 not be illegitimate to do as much for the promo- 

 tion of scientific investigation. To take the lowest 

 ground, as a mere investment of money, the latter 

 is likely to be much more immediately profitable. 

 To my mind, the difficulty in the way of such 

 schemes is not theoretical, but practical. Given 

 the laboratories, how are the investigators to be 

 maintained? What career is open to those who 

 have been thus encouraged to leave bread-winning 

 pursuits? If they are to be provided for by endow- 

 ment, we come back to the College Fellowship sys- 

 tem, the results of which, for Literature, have not 

 been so brilliant that one would wish to see it ex- 

 tended to Science; unless some much better secur- 

 ities than at present exist can be taken that it will 

 foster real work. You know that among the Bees, 

 it depends on the kind of cell in which the egg 

 is deposited, and the quantity and quality of food 

 which is supplied to the grub, whether it shall turn 

 out a busy little worker or a big idle queen. And, 

 in the human hive, the cells of the endowed larvae 

 are always tending to enlarge, and their food to 

 improve, until we get queens, beautiful to behold, 

 but which gather no honey and build no comb. 



I do not say that these difficulties may not be 

 overcome, but their gravity is not to be lightly 

 estimated. 



