508 



undoubtedly true, though it may be equally true that there are cir- 

 cumstances in the working of the French system, dependent partly 

 on the immense value of the privileges conferred by the election, 

 which have a tendency to arrest the wholesome progress of science in 

 that country. In England, so far as an experience of nearly forty 

 years can enable me to form an opinion, 1 should say that there is 

 great impartiality and discrimination exhibited in the selection of 

 men to fill high posts in the various Scientific Societies there esta- 

 blished, and I apprehend there are few instances in which meritorious 

 and successful cultivators of the various departments of science, if 

 resident in the metropolis, have failed in obtaining their share in the 

 government and administration of those learned bodies. The con- 

 stitution of the Board of Visitors of the Greenwich Observatory also 

 is worthy of all praise. It has contributed in some degree doubtless 

 to raise that establishment to the high point of eminence which it 

 now deservedly occupies ; and that constitution has called forth the 

 warm eulogiums of the veteran French astronomer Biot, than whom 

 there can be few more competent judges. On the other hand, the 

 mode of appointing the Trustees of the British Museum is defective 

 in the extreme. They are nominally elected by the Trustees them- 

 selves, but the Trustees, who have been themselves elected, are by an 

 absurd regulation excluded from the body of electors. The officers of 

 the Council of Education and the Board of Trade, and the Military 

 and Naval Boards are appointed by the Government or Military 

 authorities, and the nominations are thus subject to all the incidents 

 of appointments of this class. 



The blots in our system seem to be, first, that there is a great 

 want of combined action between the various communities representing 

 Science ; an evil, which might possibly be remedied by some joint 

 representation of the whole ; and secondly, that the Societies insti- 

 tuted for the promotion of the various branches of science, though 

 containing among their members and governing bodies those men 

 who have been impartially selected as pre-eminent in their various 

 walks, are not officially recognized in any way as authorities, or 

 appealed to except occasionally and by accident, whenever some 

 member of the Administration may happen to perceive that their 

 counsel might advance the object in view, and be profitable to the 

 State. Moreover, it seems never to have occurred either to the 



