402 NATURAL SCIENCE. august, 



sample rooms are to be widely scattered ; systematic colonisation is 

 to be furthered ; commercial education encouraged, and industrial 

 exhibitions and conferences arranged. As if this were not enough, 

 the Institute promises to do "anything incidental or conducive to 

 carrying into effect all or any of the foregoing purposes," and all this 

 on an endowment of ^4,000 a year. The only item in the programme 

 that does appear practical is that which proposes to use the Institute 

 as a South Kensington club, with a " special refreshment room for 

 Fellows," combined with all ordinary club privileges. 



To all this there is simply one fundamental objection. It is the 

 right thing in the wrong place. The original scheme was well 

 worthy of the occasion it was intended to commemorate. Our 

 colonial empire has been founded by commerce and for commerce, 

 and upon this, more than on race or language, it depends for its 

 continued union. There could, therefore, have been no happier 

 method of commemorating the era during which our colonies have 

 made their greatest progress, than by the establishment of an Institute 

 whose duty it should be to prevent industrial effort running to waste, 

 and to substitute for the hostility of commercial competition the 

 belief that " the good of each is the common good of all." For such 

 an Institute, however, properly to fulfil the purposes for which it was 

 designed, it was absolutely essential that it should be placed right at 

 the commercial centre of the empire ; that, of course, fixes its proper 

 place as in the City, and, if possible, within the few acres wherein 

 are crowded the Bank, the Clearing House, the Royal Exchange, 

 the Stock Exchange, the Mansion House, and the Baltic. South 

 Kensington, however, may possibly be made the centre of English 

 culture, science, and art, but the commercial centre it can never be 

 until Macaulay's Maoris there hold auction with their long-lost and 

 lamented green-jade gods. 



The scheme, as at first proposed, was received with enthusiasm 

 by men who recognised its full business value, and who were 

 prepared to back it with the wealth and organising genius of the 

 City ; and this would assuredly have been a more stable foundation 

 than the fickle enthusiasm of popular sentiment. The moment the 

 site was changed to South Kensington, however, the whole basis 

 was altered. The City men at once realised that a museum of 

 commercial samples, located seven minutes' walk from a station 

 nineteen minutes by train from the nearest point of the City, would 

 be about as useful to them as a ready reckoner kept at Brighton. 

 A heavy percentage was therefore deducted from their subscriptions 

 to found a smaller but more accessible institution, and this not only 

 reduced the income, but introduced the disorganisation inevitable to 

 divided interests. 



The selection of South Kensington was no doubt made from the 

 impossibility of securing a sufficiently imposing site further east ; 

 but wc think, under the circumstances, it would have been better to 



