Viri UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL 225 



and Sculpture, in aid of the Man of Letters, or the 

 Artist, or for the mere sake of affording pleasure 

 to the general public. I apprehend that it cannot 

 be illegitimate to do as much for the promotion of 

 scientific investigation. To take the lowest ground, 

 as a mere investment of money, the latter is likely 

 to be much more immediately profitable. To my 

 mind, the difficulty in the way of such schemes is 

 not theoretical, but practical. Given the labora- 

 tories, how are the investigators to be maintained ? 

 What career is open to those who have been thus 

 encouraged to leave bread-winning pursuits ? If 

 they are to be provided for by endowment, we 

 come back to the College Fellowship system, the 

 results of which, for Literature, have not been so 

 brilliant that one would wish to see it extended to 

 Science ; unless some much better securities than 

 at present exist can be taken that it will foster 

 real work. You know that among the Bees, it 

 depends on the kind of cell in which the egg is 

 deposited, and the quantity and quality of food 

 which is supplied to the grub, whether it shall turn 

 out a busy little worker or a big idle queen. And, 

 in the human hive, the cells of the endowed larvae 

 are always tending to enlarge, and their food to 

 improve, until we get queens, beautiful to behold, 

 but which gather no honey and build no comb. 



I do not say that these difficulties may not be 

 overcome, but their gravity is not to be lightly 

 estimated. 



