NATURE 



\_May 2, 1878 



endowment of scientific workers. The sum of 4,000/. 

 placed at the disposal of a committee of the Royal 

 Society for this purpose, was doubtless a large sum to 

 begin with, and the committee has made a good beginning 

 with it. The question was a delieate and a difficult one, 

 and allowances must be made, but we doubt whethenthe 

 intention of the Government will be fulfilled by increa^g 

 the stipends of professors who are already hard worked at 

 institutions, the managers of which will now have a roost 

 excellent excuse for underpaying them ; or by cutting 

 down the personal grants to investigators to provide small 

 sums for apparatus, which the fund was not primarily 

 intended to meet. 



Another recommendation of that Commission, namely, 

 the formation of a museum of physical apparatus, comple- 

 mentary to the new museum of Natural History now being 

 erected in South Kensington, has been more than half 

 carried out. A loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus 

 was formed as an experiment, and all, or almost all, 

 have recognised the importance of a permanent museum 

 of this nature. 



The Duke of Devonshire's commission has given rise 

 to three others, which hare reported on the Universities 

 of England and Scotland ; and there is little doubt 

 that out of these labours much good will come, though 

 very likely it will be long in the coming. We say thig 

 because such ancient corporations as universities are the 

 products of so many conditions that a mere determina- 

 tion to effect organic reforms, without minute examina- 

 tion, may do much more harm than good. The great 

 point now is that the weak points of our university system 

 are no longer within the ken merely of the few. There 

 are hundreds of thousands of people now in the country 

 who can contrast that getting [of knowledge for know- 

 ledge sake, Avhich is the glory of the German system, 

 with that utterly demoralising cramming of things that 

 pay in an examination, which is the disgrace of our own. 

 Enough also is kno^vn of the activity of the laboratories 

 and scientific worksTiops in foreign universities to create 

 astonishment at the masterly inactivity in the matter of 

 original work displayed in some of our own. To recognise 

 such defects as these is half to rectify them. 



There is now a prospect of science taking its place 

 in our schools alongside of those other branches which 

 until quite recently held exclusive sway in them ; and 

 it is probable that in the course of a few years, British 

 schools will have reached the stage attained by German 

 ones a quarter of a century ago. 



The foundation of Colleges at Newcastle, Leeds, and 

 Bristol, is among the signs of this increased activity in 

 educational matters, while side by side with these new 

 foundations, Owens College has now arrived at such a 

 pitch of completeness and usefulness that its erection 

 into a university cannot be long delayed. France, as 

 well as ourselves, is now perceiving the advantages of the 

 German system, and before long we may expect to find 

 separate faculties abolished in that country, and the 

 erection of many new universities. That at Lyons is 

 almost already freed from the leading strings of Paris, 

 and others will soon follow. 



The Government has been largely influenced in another 

 way — not only, indeed, our Government, but the whole 

 civilised world. Never before in an equal period have so 



many expeditions been organised to distant parts of the 

 world, to bring back rich fruits of pure knowledge of one 

 kind or another. The voyage of the Challenger will for 

 ever mark this century in the history of science, and our 

 country must be. congratulated at having so largely helped 

 in the accumulation of the vast stores of new knowledge 

 which that and other similar expeditions have gained for 

 the use of all.,.; 



Animal forms new and strange, the secrets of the 

 deepest depth of ocean, the coursing of the blood along 

 the arteries of the Avorld, the building up of a large 

 portion of the planet itself ; such are the topics which we 

 shall hear much of during the next years, as volume 

 after volume of these precious records makes its 

 appearance. 



It is not the fault of the men of science if the Polar 

 expedition, which our Government, in friendly rivalry with 

 America, Austria, Germany, Sweden, and other countries 

 sent out, will not live so long in story as will the voyage of 

 the Challenger. It is, after all, but a grim consolation that 

 the elaborate instructions drawn up, and the valuable 

 series of facts collected for the use of this expedition, will, 

 beyond question, be found [useful in a not distant future. 

 The lesson we have learnt, however, goes to strengthen 

 the view so definitely expressed by the German committee, 

 that a mere dash to the Pole is precisely the thing that is 

 not wanted. Careful scientific work, chiefly of the 

 physical sort, carried on for a long period of time, and 

 necessarily, therefore, by relays of observers, would in all 

 probability furnish us with a large array of facts, which 

 could at once be applied to the solution of many out- 

 standing questions in various branches of terrestrial 

 physics,} The way of the winds alone, in these weirdest 

 regions of the world, in itself presents a problem which 

 may be of the highest importance. 



We hope that the enormous sums which have been 

 spent on the observations of the transit of Venus of 

 1874, will be amply justified by the result which will 

 be obtained when all the observations of Europe and 

 America have been discussed. It remains to be seen 

 whether, when this has been accomplished, the transit 

 of 1882 will have so great a charm for the astronomers 

 as its precursor of 1874. In any case if so much money 

 is to be spent on the determination of a numerical value 

 which can be arrived at by physical means, it is but fair 

 that the interesting physical phenomena which occur 

 during a transit should not be neglected to so great an 

 extent as they were on the former occasion. Those who 

 control expeditions of this kind incur a grave responsi- 

 bility if any avenue to knowledge is barred by them. 



Our first number contained an account of an eclipse 

 of the sun observed in 1869 i^^ America. We commence 

 our eighteenth volume while again in that country astro- 

 nomers are vying with each other in perfecting their 

 methods to observe the eclipse of next July. Since 1869 

 our Government has aided three eclipse expeditions ; one 

 to the Mediterranean in 1870, one to India in 1871, and 

 one to Siam in 1875. A precedent has therefore been 

 established by which active workers may profit in the 

 coming time, for every solar eclipse and every piece of 

 work at the uneclipsed sun raises questions — and will 

 doubtless for ever go on raising them — which eclipses 

 alone can settle. 



