78 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the very lowest steps in the ladder, to men who are able to devote their time 

 to higher education, that we have to look to continue the position which we now 

 occupy as, at all events, one of the greatest nations on the face of the earth. 

 And, feeling as I do on these subjects, you will not be surprised if I say that I 

 think the time is coming when governments will give more attention to this 

 matter, and perhaps find a little more money to forward its interests (Times, 

 November 6, 1902). 



Our conception of a university has changed. University education 

 is no longer regarded as a luxury of the rich which concerns only 

 those who can afford to pay heavily for it. The Prime Minister in a 

 recent speech, while properly pointing out that the collective effect of our 

 public and secondary schools upon British character can not be overrated, 

 frankly acknowledged that the boys of seventeen or eighteen who have 

 to be educated in them ^ do not care a farthing about the world they live 

 in except in so far as it concerns the cricket-field or the football-field 

 or the river.' On this ground they are not to be taught science, and 

 hence, when they proceed to the university, their curriculum is limited 

 to subjects which were better taught before the modern world existed, 

 or even Galileo was born. But the science which these young gentlemen 

 neglect, with the full approval of their teachers, on their way through 

 the school and the university to politics, the civil service or the 

 management of commercial concerns, is now one of the great necessities 

 of a nation, and our universities must become as much the insurers of 

 the future progress as battleships are the insurers of the present power 

 of states. In other words, university competition between states is 

 now as potent as competition in building battleships, and it is on this 

 ground that our university conditions become of the highest national 

 concern and, therefore, have to be referred to here, and all the more 

 because our industries are not alone in question. 



Chief among the causes which have brought us to the terrible condi- 

 tion of inferiority as compared with other nations in which we find 

 ourselves are our carelessness in the matter of education and our false 

 notions of the limitations of state functions in relation to the condi- 

 tions of modern civilization. 



Time was when the navy was largely a matter of private and local 

 effort. William the Conqueror gave privileges to the Cinque Ports on 

 the condition that they furnished fifty-two ships when wanted. In 

 the time of Edward III., of 730 sail engaged in the siege of Calais, 

 705 were 'people's ships.' All this has passed away; for our first line 

 of defense we no longer depend on private and local effort. 



Time was when not a penny was spent by the state on elementary 

 education. Again, we no longer depend upon private and local effort. 

 The navy and primary education are now recognized as properly 

 calling upon the public for the necessary financial support. But when 

 we pass from primary to university education, instead of state endow- 



