TERRESTRIAL MAGNETISM. 175 



times and in spare moments not claimed by more urgent demands. 

 Those to whom the future of the higher learning in England is dear 

 must plan and scheme to promote the life-long studies of men, as in the 

 last quarter of a century they have struggled, with marked success, to 

 promote the preparatory studies of boys and girls. That the assign- 

 ment of a secondary position to research is the more popular view, and 

 that the necessity for encouraging it has as yet hardly been grasped by 

 many of those who control our modern educational movements is, I fear, 

 too true. It is therefore a matter for congratulation that within the 

 last year Oxford has established a research degree, and has thus taken 

 an important step toward gathering within her fold workers of mature 

 years who are able and willing, not merely to gain knowledge, but to 

 add to it. 



We may also note, with pleasure and gratitude, that the stream of 

 private munificence has recently been in part directed to the advance- 

 ment of learning. Sir Henry Thompson has generously ottered a sum 

 of £5,000 to provide a large photographic telescope for the iS^ational 

 Observatory at Greenwich. The new instrument is to be of 26 inches 

 aperture and 22 feet G inches focal length, or exactly double the linear 

 dimensions of that which has been previously employed. Mr. Ludwig 

 Mond, too, has added to his noble gifts to science by the new research 

 laboratories which he is about to establish in connection with the Royal 

 Institution. Albemarle street is thronged with memories of great dis- 

 coveries. The researches of Lord Rayleigh and the remarkable results 

 of Professor Dewar's studies of matter at low temperatures are main- 

 taining the great reputation which the Royal Institution lias gained in 

 the past, and all English physicists will rejoice that prospects of new 

 and extended usefulness are opeuing before it. 



Another hopeful though very embarrassing fact is that the growth 

 in the number of scientific workers makes it increasingly difficult to 

 find the funds which are necessary for the publication of their work. 

 Up to tlie present the author of a pajier has had to submit it to criti- 

 cism, but when it has been approved by competent judges it has been 

 published without ado and without exj)ense to himself. This is as it 

 should be. It is right that due care should be exercised to prune away 

 all unnecessary matter, to reduce as far as may be the necessary cost. 

 It will, however, be a great misfortune if judgment as to what curtail- 

 ment is necessary is in future passed, not with the object of removing 

 what is really superfluous but in obedience to the iron rule of poverty. 

 Apart from all other disadvantages, such a course would add to the 

 barriers which are dividing the students of different sciences. A few 

 lines and a rough diagram may suffice to show to experts what has 

 been attempted and what achieved ; but there is no paper so difficult 

 to master as that which assumes that the reader starts from the point 

 of vantage which months or years of study have enabled the author to 

 attain. Undue pruning w.ill not make the tree of knowledge more 

 fruitful, land will certainly make it harder to climb. 



