RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 253 



apartments at Burlington House, we hail the com- 

 mencement of that organisation, recommended by the 

 British Association at their first meeting, from which 

 the most important results of combination of present 

 scattered powers, and of a system of intellectual 

 co-operation, may be confidently expected.' 



If Brewster's ideal, then, be held inconsistent 

 with our ' national genius/ the mere provision of a 

 common building, on the other hand, can hardly be 

 regarded as sufficient to insure complete co-operation 

 in scientific organisation, even if its dimensions were 

 such as to accommodate the representation of all 

 scientific interests (which those of Burlington House 

 are not). Moreover, since the days of Brewster 

 and Airy and Owen, the State has entered the field 

 of scientific research in certain appropriate directions, 

 as exemplified by the work of the Department of 

 Scientific and Industrial Research to which reference 

 has already been made. This should tend toward 

 a more intimate relationship between the Govern- 

 ment and scientific bodies ; and the British Asso- 

 ciation, for one, benefited thereby when in 1919 

 the Department made it a grant toward certain 

 researches for which it desired, in spite of its own war 

 losses, to continue financial assistance. 



A middle course has thus been taken between 



was not until 1890 that an opportunity arose to transfer the head- 

 quarters of the Association to Burlington House : this was done in 

 the following year, but the accommodation which then remained avail- 

 able is possibly not wholly fitting to the status of a body whose powerful 

 aid had been largely instrumental in securing the provision of the 

 building for the uses of science. Such, at least, is the view commonly 

 expressed by those who are compelled to ascend 104 steps from the 

 street-level when visiting the office now in occupation, or to call upon 

 the hospitality of other societies for meeting-places for the Council 

 and committees. 



