102 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



I'm EMBER 18, 1915. 



decided to send down a reporter. Saving bean duly 

 s hown some oi the Mendelian results obtained with 

 plants and poultry bj the Director, Professor Bateson, 

 the reportei greatly impressed, returned to his office, 

 and the next day submitted a proof with the following 

 headline: 



THE WIZARD OF MERTON 



which, had it been passed, would have produced 

 an impression of quackery whifh to a man of science 

 would scarcely be short of libel, even though it had 

 been invented with the best of journalistic intention. 



At the present time GreaJ Britain is involved in 

 war— in a struggle which depends as much upon 

 science and machinery as upori men. One would have 

 expected that- the attitude of the Press in relation to 

 science might under these conditions have undergone 

 some change. Apart from a general Mutter concerning 

 the desirabi'ity of mobilizing science which was only 

 staried by outside initiative, namely, by letters sent 

 to I'Ik Times, notably b} Mr. H.C. Wells— the Press has 

 ■done nothing even to make the public realize the com- 

 pelling earnestness of science. We < |iiite recognize the 

 difficulty of dealing in a popu&r style with technical 

 subjects in the absence of any special knowledge on the 

 part of the reporter, hut in such a ease as Professor 

 Fleming's lecture on Science in the War and After the 

 War recently delivered to a public audience at Univer- 

 sity College, London, then' would seem to be no excuse 

 on that ground for neglecting to report its salient points 

 in the newspapers. This lecture has been printed in 

 full in Nature and also in the 1 Journal of the Royal 

 .Soeitty of Arts. While this is an acknowledgment 

 of its value, and will suffice to bring it to the notice of 

 .scientific and technical men, it misses the wider public: 

 It is impossible to get the ear of the wider public 

 except through the daily Press, and it may be supposed 

 that the Press will do nothings until the public shows 

 a definite desire to offer it. This brings us to the 

 subject of education, which owing to limitation of 

 space cannot be discussed lure at any length. Suffice 

 it to say that the teaching of science in schools requires 



i, i Idling, that an appreciation oi science rather 



than a knowledge of science ^should be taught first, 

 and this we may suppose could be best achieved by 

 •devoting greater attention to the historical side of 

 -cience. In othei words, we must descend to the level of 

 those we criticise, but in a legitimate way, and teach 

 ■our children science as it centres around the lives and 

 personalities of Nature's greatest exponents. 

 * * » * 



Sine, the above was written a copj ol Nature for 



November 4 has been received. This contain- an 

 editorial beaded Science ;md Nescience, containing 

 ideas associated with those expressed above. In this 

 article attention is called to the national characteristic, 

 in Great Britain, of indifference to scientific plans of 

 action, whether pertaining to operations during war or 

 of industry in times of peace. Tin- is largely respon- 

 sible for the archaic system still in vogue whereby men 

 are selected tor administrative posts in the national 

 service, irrespective of sound technical knowledge. 



The article then deals with the existing want of 

 sympathy and understanding between science and 

 literature. Writers in the newspapers and periodicals 

 when they do refer to scientific work rarely do so with 

 accuracj ami caution. Either terms are wrongly used, 

 or a matter of common knowledge among men of 

 science is regarded as a remarkable discovery, or 

 sensational claims are presented to the public as if 

 they were established truths, though they await 

 confirmation from the scientific world, and are mostly 

 unworthy of serious consideration. 



In regard to national education Nature says: 'It is 

 time to understand that no man can now be considered 

 to have received a liberal education unless he has some 

 acquaintance with the principles and methods of science 

 and that works of Pasteur and Faraday should be as 

 familiar to all as thpse of Victor Hugo and Tennyson. 

 The training which ends in literary culture without 

 science is just as incomplete as that which promotes 

 scientific knowledge without the power of clear 

 expression.' 



With special reference to the matter of expression 

 Nature points out that it is less easy to clothe the 

 results of science in pleasing language than ideas of art 

 and of the imagination. This is quite tin.', and, in our 

 opinion, it points, to what we have expressed at 

 the end of the first part of this discussion -that 

 education wants re modelling to make people apprec- 

 iate scientific knowledge because it is knowledge, 

 and knowledge obtained through the highest of human 

 agencies the grej matter of the brain. 



THE PROSPECTS OF SPONGE 



CULTIVATION. 



In the current issue oi the West Indian Bulletin 

 (Vol. XV, No. 2) is a paper by Mr. V7. II. Dunlop, o U 

 a method of sponge cultivation from cuttings, together with 

 notes on other possible marine industries thai might be 

 developed in the Lesser Antilles. 



