George Francis FitzGerald. 157 



With all his critical power he seldom expressed himself severely 

 on the scientific mistakes of others. I have once or twice heard him 

 speak of some man as small or narrow, and I have heard him wax 

 indignant over some charlatan who pretended to be what he was 

 not ; but these were exceptional instances, and as a rule this mood 

 had to be worked up by others: it did not arrive spontaneously. 

 Generally he saw the best in people ; and, like Lord Kelvin, was 

 able to disentangle ideas of value from the crude efforts at presenta- 

 tion of a beginner or of an ordinary muddle-headed man. 



Gradually as he grew older the sense of public duty grew upon 

 him, and he was prepared to spend his time in public service to an 

 extraordinary, and as some thought a wasteful, extent. In 1888 he 

 was appointed a member of the Board of Irish National Education, 

 and devoted a large amount of time to work not free from con- 

 troversy ; and shortly before his death he was appointed, with five 

 others, to the Intermediate Education Board. Had he lived (he has 

 written to his uncle, Dr. Johnstone Stoney) he would have sought 

 to devote himself to the organisation of National Education rather 

 than to the uninterrupted pursuit of his science, saying with com- 

 plete sincerity that whether the human race got to know about the 

 ether now or fifty years hence was a small matter, but whether the 

 present state of appalling scientific ignorance was to continue for 

 another generation was a vital matter affecting the future of his 

 own country in a positive and definite way. 



The portentous backwardness of this country (not Ireland alone) 

 in education does indeed call for sacrifice on the part of those who 

 clearly realise it; and into this work FitzGerald would undoubtedly 

 have thrown himself. Until a general level of scientific knowledge 

 has been attained by a nation, it cannot expect its great men to 

 forge on ahead and continue their advanced studies with satisfaction 

 to themselves. Already they have been feeling too isolated and 

 aloof from humanity, and a feeling of the futility of it all, based 

 upon the entire uncomprehension of the multitude an uncompre- 

 hension shared under our present system of education by the great 

 bulk of so-called educated men, is apt to make itself unpleasantly 

 prominent every now and then, and to lead gradually to the belief, 

 at which FitzGerald arrived, that greater service could be done by 

 working towards the raising of the general level than by a pioneer- 

 ing quest, solitary or with only a few like-minded spirits, into lands 

 too far removed from human traffic to be capable of utilisation and 

 absorption for generations to come; perhaps, therefore, to be for- 

 gotten and ignored altogether, until re-discovered independently 

 hereafter, at a time when the general level of intelligence in scientific 

 directions shall be higher than it is now, and can enable it to be 

 appreciated and retained. 



