496 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



Dundas (Crown Agent for Scotland). It is mere hypocrisy to expect from a 

 body so constituted, to the majority of whom the words science and scientific 

 research mean little more than the letters out of which the words are composed , 

 an equitable balance between science and the other subjects cognate to a 

 technical or commercial education. Either they should be totally neutral as 

 regards the two competing beneficiaries, or they should be reconstituted to give 

 a representation to each side in accordance with the intentions of the founder 

 of the Trust. 



In the general awakening to the rational importance of giving fail play to 

 science, and especially to scientific investigation in the Universities, it is to be 

 hoped that the composition of the Carnegie Trust and its record of work under 

 Clause A will not escape unchallenged. 



It would indeed be strange if out of between one-half and three-quarters of a 

 million pounds interest available for the promotion of scientific study and research, 

 science had not benefited at all. That of course is not alleged. But the almost 

 total lack of representation of living science on the Trust, and the over-representa- 

 tion of the humanistic element, has made for fatal timidity and lack of imagination 

 and originality in the application of the moneys, so far as the primary object of 

 the benefaction is concerned. There is no automatic retiral of members annually, 

 or provision making them ineligible for re-election till after an interval, which has 

 been found to be necessary, from experience, for good and effective management. 

 Of a body so constituted, probably the best and worst that could be said is that 

 they were given a unique opportunity to promote scientific study and investiga- 

 tion, and even if they had had the best will towards science in the world, they 

 could not have grasped it, because that is a branch of human endeavour which the 

 overwhelming majority had not explored for themselves. In these circumstances 

 a secretary who had some acquaintance with scientific study and investigation 

 might have been of service to them. 



No doubt their difficulties were enormous in connection with the peculiar rela- 

 tions to the Universities in which they were thrown, but the difficulties have 

 proved the master. The nation should look for something more real in the 

 promotion of scientific study and research in the future from the million pounds 

 which Mr. Carnegie gave for the purpose. 



It would not be fair to saddle the Carnegie Trustees with the responsibility, at 

 least before it has been pointed out to them ; but their attention and that of the 

 public may be directed to a very important cognate question, How much of the 

 grants from the Carnegie Trust nominally given to science is diverted from that 

 object ? Special information, not contained in every case in the financial state- 

 ments of the Universities presented to Parliament, is needed in this inquiry, and 

 this must excuse the writer's inability to consider any but his own University, and 

 indeed little more than his own department, of which naturally he has the fullest 

 information. 



The one scientific post in Aberdeen endowed by the Carnegie Trust is the 

 Lectureship in Geology. The endowment, ,£12,632, and an annual grant of ,£1,000 

 towards equipment of the laboratories, practically exhaust the Trust's scientific 

 allocations in this University. In the early years a total sum not exceeding 

 ^2,500 in addition went in small increases of from .£75 to ^50 in the salaries of 

 some half-dozen science lecturers and assistants. In the published accounts, the 

 interest of the Geology endowment to the extent of .£400 is stated to have gone to 

 the payment of the Lecturer's salary, and the part payment of that of an assistant. 

 But, taking 1913-14, the year before the war, the students' class fees, ^505— 



