NOTES 147 



In Nature of June 8 there also appeared a strong letter asking parents of 

 boys at public schools to support the signatories in similar efforts by communicating 

 with Sir Mark Collet, Bt., Kensing, Kent. The signatories of the letter were 

 Lords Avebury, Desborough, Claud J. Hamilton, Sir John Jellicoe, and others. 



Science and the State 



One of the best letters that have recently appeared upon this subject is written 

 by Sir Napier Shaw, F.R.S., in Nature of May 11. We have often talked about 

 the workers in the trenches of Science, and it is interesting to note that this very 

 phrase was used by Sir David Brewster sixty-one years ago. " The project which 

 Brewster favoured was State support for men of science on the lines of the French 

 Academy, and to the lack of such support Brewster attributed the neglect of the 

 Newtonian philosophy in England, while it was being successfully developed in 

 France by Laplace, d'Alembert, Clairaut, and others. . . . The exponents of 

 science in this country have allowed the issues of the inevitable conflict of studies 

 in science to be dictated everywhere from the examination point of view. That 

 calamity— for it is nothing short of it— is more largely responsible for the apathy 

 of the State towards science than is generally acknowledged. So far has our 

 control by examination extended that it is not too much to say that, for the 

 general, our education has become the art of passing examinations without having 

 to think, and the educational profession is, in practice, the only human occupation 

 for which a general education is not required." This final epigram is a dismissal 

 with a kick indeed ! 



Another excellent paper bearing on the subject is by Prof. F. G. Donnan, 

 F.R.S., in the School World of May last. He says: " Science is, therefore, no less 

 than an emancipation of the spirit from the thraldom of ignorance, obtained 

 through the laborious investigation and direction of the conditions and circum- 

 stances of its environment. Science as thus defined may be, it is true, only a part 

 of civilisation. There must, indeed, exist an inner light, an inner progressive 

 unfolding of the spirit, whence come the highest aspirations of religion, art, and 

 literature. Such questions are as old as philosophy itself. But however that may 

 be, the important thing to perceive is that there can be no antagonism and there 

 must be no divorce. This is the dominant— the solemn— note that peals through- 

 out the world to-day as it pealed in the days of Galileo and Da Vinci. Science as 

 thus rightly understood must be the heritage of every man, and not the cult of any 

 special sect." 



The fatuity of the Latin-grammar educationalists appears to lie in believing 

 that their branch of knowledge is the only one of any consequence. On the other 

 hand, we who demand more science in education never go beyond urging that 

 science shall be a part of the curriculum, and only a part. Our opponents put into 

 our mouths things that we never said and never dreamed of saying. We main- 

 tain that, as Prof. Donnan says, science must be the heritage of every man, and 

 we think so because we are quite convinced, from our experience of the world, that 

 a man is not complete without some knowledge of natural phenomena and the 

 explanations of them which have been gathered by mankind during the last two 

 thousand years or more. 



Experts and the Colonial Office 



On March 12, 191 5, the British Science Guild addressed a circular letter to 

 Government Departments and municipal and other public authorities, asking 



