10 CHEMICAL DISCOVEEY AND INVENTION 



to the great majority of the pupils any real knowledge of these 

 subjects to which they have been forced to give the greater part 

 of their years of school life. This fact should serve as a warning 

 to the teachers who are occupied with mathematics and physical 

 science in schools, and lead them to the use of methods and 

 practices which will encourage their pupils to apply their know- 

 ledge daily to the affairs of common life and business. 



The importance of research into the yet unknown is acknow- 

 ledged on all hands. We have, for example, the National 

 Physical Laboratory, where a very competent, if very small, 

 staff of scientific men is employed not only in testing instruments 

 and in other routine work, but in research on the application of 

 scientific principles to objects of national importance. The design 

 of ships, the study of the principles of aeronautics, the testing of 

 metals and alloys are among the subjects which occupy them. 



Agriculture has received direct assistance of a most valuable 

 kind, in the first instance from the researches in connection with 

 the composition of soils and manures and the treatment of 

 various crops, which were initiated by Sir John Lawes so long 

 ago as 1837. In 1843 Lawes secured the assistance of Dr. J. H. 

 Gilbert, and together the two men continued and developed this 

 remarkable work during a period of fifty-seven years. Sir John 

 Lawes died in August, 1900, Sir Henry Gilbert in December, 

 1901. The work continues on the same ground, with the aid of 

 the fund left by Sir John Lawes, under the direction of the 

 Lawes Agricultural Trust, and the Director appointed by them, 

 Dr. Edward John Russell. In more recent times several Agri- 

 cultural Colleges have been established, and research is carried 

 on to a greater or less extent in all of them. To these must be 

 added the Experimental Farm belonging to the Royal Agri- 

 cultural Society and the Fruit Farm belonging to the Duke of 

 Bedford at Woburn. 



Research has been aided for many years past by the dis- 

 tribution of 4000 per annum, entrusted by the Government to 

 the Royal Society, but the amount thus administered is quite 

 inadequate to the requirements of the many applicants from 

 the whole circle of the sciences, the amount available for any 

 one branch, chemistry for example, being almost insignificant. 

 The Chemical Society has also a small research fund, but the 

 grants made seldom exceed 10, and serve only to lighten the 

 burden of the investigator in the purchase of necessary materials. 



