YOUTH PAYS THE BILL 177 



a billiard table. We have the authority of the 

 President of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Thomson, 

 as to its scientific uses. He tells how he once lured 

 a sporting member of his class quite a long way into 

 the kinetic theory of gases and the primrose paths of 

 mathematical physics by tactful references to and 

 illustrations from that very science. 



Joking apart, however, the price paid for putting 

 new wine into old bottles has become ruinous. 

 Before the war had branded into the consciousness of 

 the people what the lack of science brought in its 

 train, in the eternal antagonism of authority to 

 new knowledge, verbal subtleties like the above 

 were a perfect god-send. When, however, we were 

 at grips with a scientific enemy, whose science was 

 of the Huxley type rather than that of the 1881 

 Commissioners, and with the character of which 

 Carnegie was more familiar than his trustees, 

 verbal subtleties did not save the situation, and 

 youth paid the bill. If science is not to get ordinary 

 decent fair-play in ancient educational establish- 

 ments, it is the youth of the country who will pay 

 again. It is not good to be young in a country 

 that is governed by worm-eaten prejudices and 

 absurd conjuring-tricks with words. 



The teaching of a single main science subject, 

 such as chemistry, which demands full lecture and 

 practical courses almost without number for students 

 drawn from the three Faculties of Arts, Medicine 

 and Science, to-day involves probably more actual 

 work than the teaching given in the whole Faculty of 

 Arts a century ago. Of course it could not be 

 done at all, but for the loyal and devoted staff of 

 lecturers, assistants and demonstrators. 



Throughout Scotland since, with the B.Sc., 

 serious training in science began, which, though 

 the numbers formerly attending were relatively 



