NOTES 677 



London, W.C.) I suggested that Government should give the Society apartments 

 in order to provide a reading-room and a library, as it does in the case of many 

 learned societies and the Royal Academy. My proposal has been erroneously 

 taken to mean that I wish the Government to subsidise the writing of bad poetry. 

 Not at all. The whole of the British Empire, do what it will, cannot create a 

 single great line of poetry, just as it cannot bring about a great scientific discovery. 

 That was not my point at all. But a place of meeting where the greatest of the 

 arts can be displayed to the public will be an educative measure of the first im- 

 portance for a nation which requires to have its low intellectual tone raised. 

 Frankly, I do not believe much in the intellectual capacity of the modern British 

 nation, and think that if it had paid a little more attention to the great arts and 

 sciences, and much less to the amusements mentioned above, it would have been 

 a much greater people and more worthy of the Empire which fate and our fore- 

 fathers have given to it. Is it not shameful that out of some fifteen million pounds 

 spent annually in this country for so-called education, scarcely a penny is devoted 

 to the honour and the teaching of the greatest of the arts ? 



The following is an amusing example of the very clever manner in which some 

 of our learned societies are managed. A certain Medical Society long pos- 

 sessed a laboratory which it was unable to use because it could not pay for the 

 petty expenses. Some years ago, however, it appointed a medical man as 

 Honorary Director, and this gentleman found friends who were generous enough 

 to pay the said expenses. Presently the laboratory grew so much in importance 

 that an extension was required, together with the purchase of much new apparatus. 

 The same donors again came generously forward, and put down a substantial sum 

 of money expressly for these purposes. Now, however, the Society apparently 

 began to think that some of the cash might be used with advantage for other 

 purposes ; allotted certain small sums for various items not in connection with the 

 laboratory ; and then, without the knowledge of the Director, wrote a letter to the 

 donors so cleverly worded that, if the contained suggestions had been accepted by 

 the donors, the Society would have been able to take more than one-third of the 

 total sum for its general purposes. Fortunately the donors, who were clearly more 

 astute than the poor Society, smelt a rat, and refused the suggestion. This little 

 contretemps may have been excused as being due to the excess of zeal on the part 

 of the Society's officials, but unfortunately, the Society now adopted a very lofty 

 tone, and instead of apologising to the generous donors, tried to fix blame upon 

 them ! The ultimate result was that the Society was obliged to give back the 

 residue of the money, together with all the apparatus purchased under the gift ; 

 and, still worse, one of the donors, who without any one's knowledge had been 

 good enough to bequeath no less than five thousand pounds to the Society, now 

 withdrew that bequest. Thus the poor Society is left mourning ; and the 

 Honorary but dishonoured Director will probably think twice before trying again 

 to collect money for science and learned societies. 



The Athenaeum (September 1916) says, " We hope it will be recognised that 

 men of science have much to learn in the way of clear expression of their results." 

 Agreed ; and, while literary persons invariably express themselves perfectly, we 

 hope they will recognise that they seldom have anything to express. It would be 

 an excellent thing if a literary man were to be appointed to every laboratory in 

 order to attend to the style of the investigators and, also, to learn the difference 

 between real and imaginary work. 



After the war something like starvation will face all the nations of Europe, 

 combatant and non-combatant, simply because the food-makers have so long been 



