404 Prof. H. E. Armsfrotifj on Lotc-Temperatiire Research 



training competent teachers in his laboratory at Griessen, Germany 

 long ago changed her attitude and soon attained to the " golden 

 medium ; " the result has been that she now holds a leading position 

 ])oth as a cultured and as an industrial nation. But although 

 inspired primarily bj Liebig, German success cannot be regarded 

 otherwise than as resting largely upon Faraday's work — especially 

 upon his discovery of benzene, the study of which has profited both 

 science and industry in a manner without parallel in any other branch 

 of natural knowledge. 



Here it is still true that only those works which have a practical 

 tendency or sensational discoveries awaken attention and command 

 respect ; the purely scientific achievements are almost unknown. In 

 fact, the Royal Institution is still the only establishment within 

 whose audience chamber due public recognition is accorded to 

 scientific work. 



In giving evidence before the Public School Commission in 1862,. 

 Faraday made the weighty statement : — 



" that the natural knowledge which has been given to the world 

 during the last fifty years, I may say, should remain untouched and 

 that no sufficient attempt should he made to convey it to the young 

 mind growing up and obtaining its first views of these things is to me a 

 matter so strange that I find it difficult to understand ; though I think I 

 see the opposition breaking away, it is yet a very hard one to he over- 

 come. That it ought to be overcome I have not the least doubt in 

 the world." 



Now, nearly fifty years later, we are more than ever constrained 

 to admit that the opposition is a very hard one to be overcome ; it 

 is breaking away perhaps a little less slowly than in Faraday's time, 

 but much too slowly in view of past delay and our urgent needs. 

 And the outlook at present is far from encouraging. 



" Science," it is true, has been introduced into a large number of 

 schools, but in too many cases, it is to be feared, the teaching is of a 

 more or less perfunctory character and both poor as discipline and 

 barren of interest. The Universities have not yet thought it well to 

 treat training in scientific method as a necessary element of prelimi- 

 nary education. And at the Universities themselves mere know- 

 ledge has been cultivated at the expense of appreciation and the 

 poAver of applying knowledge. Even scientific workers seem rarely 

 to have been actuated by the spirit of self-abnegation in the public 

 interest, having done little to overcome the resistance which the 

 conservative elements of society oppose to progress. The effect of 

 scientific training and work in broadening sympathies has been 

 strangely disappointing in this respect. But Faraday appears to have 

 foreseen that such would be the case. One of the most striking 

 addresses he delivered of which we have cognizance was that on 

 the " Inertia of the Mind," written in his youthful days : in this he 



