APPENDIX A LXVII 



During the last twenty-fi\'e years the various German govern- 

 ments came to recognize that direct aid to their universities was a 

 powerful factor in furthering the industrial efficiency of the nation, 

 and, in consequence, they made provision for the expansion of these 

 institutions on the scientific side, with results which made Germany 

 not, indeed, as wealthy as Great Britain or France, but, it has been 

 claimed, more than five times as wealthy as she was in 1875. 



Great Britain also increased her wealth during the last forty 

 years, but not at all in proportion to her opportunities. Her in- 

 dustries did not avail themselves of the highest skill and expert 

 knowledge, nor did they, except in rare cases, employ a staff of in- 

 vestigators to indicate the way in which advances could be made. 

 They were, on the whole, content to go on the old lines and to ignore 

 what science was doing. Nor did the Government view matters 

 differently. For many years it gave an annual grant of £4,000 to 

 the Royal Society for research in pure science and for ten or more 

 years £7,000 annually to the National Physical Laboratory. It 

 gave grants to various universities, colleges, and technical schools, 

 but in no case was it obligatory that any of these should be spent 

 on research, and, indeed, they were largely expended for ordinary 

 academic and technological courses of instruction, Research, when 

 not opposed, was expressly ignored. It was, indeed, often sneered 

 at, and the two great universities of Oxford and Cambridge were 

 brought with difficulty to recognize that science and the advance of 

 it by research are objects worthy of the attention of institutions 

 supposed to teach the best that is known or thought in the world. 

 Cambridge in the last twenty years has by the support she has 

 given to scienctific research done loyal service to science, but it was 

 not easy to efface the impression given to thousands of alumni of 

 both Oxford and Cambridge who imbibed reactionary views re- 

 garding the claims of science, and who from their numbers in Parlia- 

 ment or in the learned professions, and even in mercantile and 

 industrial establishments, controlled the trend of opinion on the 

 subject. 



For the last thirty years British scientific men have been 

 uttering warnings against apathy regarding, and hostility towards, 

 science. Again and many times again it was pointed out that the 

 control of the basic national industries was passing into German 

 hands. The warning was unheeded, or when it was heard it was 

 met with the plea that it was quite natural, and that, if the Germans 

 could manufacture in these lines so much better than the British, 

 it was to the advantage of the latter, for the balance of trade was 

 and would remain in their favour, as they were the greatest trading 



