NOTES 495 



Grants in aid of research are again excellent, and would be more so if they were 

 given when they were wanted ; whereas, to suit the conditions laid down by the 

 Trustees, the money has to be applied for before a definite date in the year before it 

 is wanted. But of the three indispensable requirements for getting research done, 

 these two, the training of the apprentice and the provision of money for instru- 

 ments, are preliminary. The third indispensable, letting the trained man with the 

 instruments do the research, is the one this country has not yet thought much 

 about. 



At the bottom of the ladder, the Research Scholar or Fellow at the end of his 

 training has had to abandon the work for which he was training and seek a 

 livelihood. If he is lucky he will get a teaching position, and if, again, he is lucky 

 he may find odd moments to continue his researches. If he is not so lucky he has 

 to begin late in life the study of the art of earning a living. The Professor at the 

 top, nowhere more than in Scotland, finds that he must now be content to do his 

 research by deputy, and the most he can hope for is to train clever apprentices. 

 Some subjects, naturally, lend themselves to this requirement very much better 

 than others, and what is possible in them is not possible in general. The real 

 business for which the Professor is paid, again nowhere more than in the land to 

 which Mr. Carnegie gave his millions, is to teach. Instead of being treated as a 

 life -business, requiring years of devoted training and study for the preparation, and 

 equally devoted and uninterrupted application for its pursuit, research is treated 

 as a hobby to be followed by busy teachers in the intervals of their regular duties. 

 This is not the way to foster perhaps the most important and repaying of all the 

 State's numerous activities. The Carnegie Trustees have not even attempted to 

 meet this difficulty. 



The Annual Reports issued by the Carnegie Trust do not contain the names of 

 the Trustees. The original list in the Trust Deed consists of fourteen nominated 

 members, two of them, Lord Kelvin and Sir Henry Roscoe, having in the past 

 contributed to the advancement of natural knowledge, four ex-officio members (the 

 Secretary of State for Scotland, and the Lord Provosts of Edinburgh, Glasgow, 

 and Dunfermline for the time being), and four members elected by the Universities. 

 The vacancies in the nominated members are filled up by the Trustees remaining. 

 The nominated Trustees apparently hold office for life, and consist almost 

 entirely of eminent public men, more or less universally known, many of them 

 distinguished in History, Literature, Philosophy, and the Law, that is, in the 

 ancillary or illegitimate rather than the primary group of studies. Moreover, 

 the branches of the ancillary subjects in which they are distinguished are not 

 those cognate to a technical or commercial education. The two original scientific 

 members are dead, as also is Sir Arthur Rucker, who replaced one of them. 

 In the case of all three, their career of active scientific investigation had 

 practically closed before they were appointed. In no case, so far as the writer 

 is aware, has an active scientific investigator been a Trustee. At the present 

 time there does not appear to be a single scientific man on the Trust. Of 

 the four Trustees elected by the Universities, two are distinguished members of 

 the medical profession ; a third, Sir William Turner, having lately died. The 

 legal profession, past and present Cabinet Ministers, and public administrators 

 supply the whole of the present nominated members. Sir Henry Roscoe's 

 death removed the only scientific member. The others are : Earl of Elgin and 

 Kincardine, Earl of Rosebery, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, Lord Kinnear of Spurness 

 (ex-Senator of the College of Justice), Lord Reay of Reay, Rt. Hon. A. J. Balfour, 

 Viscounts Bryce and Morley, Lord Shaw, Rt. Hon. H. H. Asquith, and W. J. 



