122 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



and Manchester and Liverpool, serving a combined population of 5,000,000, 

 have each a university. Professor Perry, in his presidential address to 

 the Educational Section at the Australian meeting of the British Associa- 

 tion in 1914, boldly expressed the view that a number of separate univer- 

 sities would be better for London than a single university consisting of 

 federated colleges. To propound, in view of all these facts, as a sort of 

 sacrosanct dogma, that for London there must be one and only one univer- 

 sity, savours rather of an academic megalomania than of a balanced educa- 

 tional perspective. 



The Imperial College and the University of London should be set free to 

 work out each its own future independently of the other. They have diver- 

 gent aims and interests, each worthy in its own way, and it is an injurious 

 mistake to force them into an unworkable mesalliance. The argument 

 against the control of the Imperial College by the University of London was 

 well stated in the report of the Departmental Committee of 1906 : 



" Industrial and commercial conditions are constantly altering ; the 

 character and relative importance of manufacturing processes, and even of 

 entire sections of national activity, are subject to unforeseen variation. An 

 institution which is to keep in touch ■wH.th these interests must be corre- 

 spondingly elastic. Its organisation must be free from all impeding trammels 

 founded upon experience of the well-tried and comparatively little- changing 

 track of an education regulated and rightly regulated by other aims. . . , 

 Its governors must be in a position to govern with a single eye to the fitness 

 of the institution for its proper function. ... A system of control and organ- 

 isation common to the new institution (i.e. the Imperial College) and the 

 University could not be formulated without such compromise as would 

 seriously imperil the ef&ciency of both." 



National Union of Scientific Workers. 



Report of meeting of London Branch, held at Imperial College Union, 

 Tuesday, May 11, 1920. 



At a meeting of the London Branch of the National Union of Scientific 

 Workers, held at the Imperial College Union on May 11, Dr. Atkinson, 

 who presided, said that the continued progress of the nation depended upon 

 the attention paid to scientific work, and the attention paid by scientific 

 workers to the conduct of affairs of the nation. 



Dr. Evans, in his address, reminded his audience that Newton, as master 

 of the Mint, had contributed in no small measure to the prosperity of his 

 country by standardising our coinage, thus brilliantly disproving the assertion 

 that the eminent scientist could not be a practical man, and that though 

 high scientific ability might be wasted in a purely administrative post, there 

 were many which were fundamentally scientific as well, and these must be 

 held by men who understood and could trust science. 



The country must assist Research in the right way. So far the Depart- 

 ment of Scientific and Industrial Research had over-encouraged the com- 

 mercial side, and had given such powers to the Industrial Research Associa- 

 tions that they declared themselves unable to interfere in the notorious 

 Frink case, where the Glass Research Association, receiving, as a key industry, 

 75 per cent, of its funds from the Government, appointed an unqualified 

 Director of Research. The constitution of the Department must be re- 

 formed, and more power given to the Advisory Council, which should be 

 elected by energetic and democratic bodies such as the N.U.S.W., which 

 aimed at embracing every genuine scientific worker throughout the length 

 and breadth of the country. 



Major Church, Secretary of the N.U.S.W., who took the place of Professor 



