August 4, 1 887] 



JVA rURE 



329 



t mote their growth, and the growth of natural knowledge 

 throughout the world. 



Prof. Stokes said : — Scientific men know well how fascinating 

 is the pursuit of science. Some have even gone so far as to 

 consider that it would be polluted, if I may so speak, by being 

 applied practically. An eminent foreign mathematician de- 

 lighted in the theory of numbers because one could not conceive 

 that it could have any practical application. An eminent Eng- 

 lish mathematician 1 heard express a somewhat similar senti- 

 ment. All honour be to those who are so immersed, if I may 

 so speak, in abstract science, that they disregard and even dis- 

 like its application. They pursue science with all the more 

 zest, they pursue it in directions which possibly otherwise might 

 not have been followed out, and possibly in the end their own 

 investigations may admit of applications which they never 

 dreamt of. But for my own part my tastes do not quite lie in 

 that direction. I like to see science connected with applications 

 thereof, no matter to what purpose. Now, when we apply ab- 

 stract science to physical subjects, we are not only enabled to 

 investigate natural phenomena in a manner which could not 

 otherwise be done, but the study reacts on the most abstract 

 parts of science, and enables us sometimes to see, as if it were 

 by intuition, truths of an abstract nature, such as, for example, 

 propositions in pure mathematics, which we perhaps should 

 never have arrived at if we had not viewed them through the 

 spectacles, so to speak, of their physical application. But this 

 is not all. When science comes to be applied to the wants of 

 life, scientific men are placed by the practical man in the con- 

 dition of making experiments which oftentimes would otherwise 

 be impossible. When science comes to be applied to commer- 

 cial purposes, it then becomes possible to construct instruments 

 on a scale the expensiveness of which would have been utterly 

 prohibitory to the purely scientific man. But when these instru- 

 ments are constnicted, it may be, for commercial purposes, the 

 scientific man on his part is able by the favour of those who 

 have constructed them, or of those for whom they have been 

 constructed, to make experiments with them which oftentimes 

 are of great interest from a purely scientific point of view. 



Dr. Gladstone, responding on behalf of the " Royal Institu- 

 tion, said : — At the Institution there were not merely memories 

 binding them to all those who had passed away, but they had 

 also many relics. They preserved the log-books of Davy, 

 Faraday, and others, and not only that, but there a great number 

 of pieces of wire, sealing-wax, and card, all damaged, and many 

 other things which Faraday especially used to delight to work 

 with and to carry out in the first experiments which were sug- 

 gested by the ideas that were working in his brain, and these 

 were preserved as germs of some of their great discoveries. And 

 here he wanted to point out one of those germs connected with 

 telegraphy. Those relics preserved at the Royal Institution were 

 only worth originally a few pence or shillings. How different the 

 monster wealth which had now become the capital of those great 

 enterprises ! As far as the Royal Institution was concerned, its 

 connexion with the electric telegraph was to a certain extent not 

 direct, and yet it was very real. Sir Humphry Davy worked 

 there of course largely on galvanic electricity, but he belonged 

 to the pre-telegraphic era. Faraday himself commenced to work 

 early on these matters, and continued to try and image in his 

 own mind what was taking place in these phenomena. It was 

 an important point with him that the glories of science should 

 conduce to the benefit of man. They knew his influence with 

 Sir Charles Wheatstone was very great, and he got him into the 

 dark chambers at the Royal Institution and talked to hiin about 

 his investigations, and in the theatre brought before him some of 

 those experiments which were afterwards performed with so 

 much success in public. In one way and another Faraday had 

 to do with the industrial applications of electricity, as well as 

 with scientific discovery. They had the combination of the 

 purely scientific man with the practical man, and then the two 

 going together with slow, careful, conscientious investigation, 

 followed by the energetic carrying out of the discovery in a form 

 which benefited mankind. 



Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, M.P., in proposing the " Societies repre- 

 senting Applied Science," said : — When I was a boy, at Eton, I 

 recollect well the extension of the telegraph from London to 

 Slough, and an incident of which you are all aware, the arrest 

 of Tawell, which I believe brought the telegraph more into 

 notice than anything else at that time. It might have been ex- 

 pected that the authorities of Eton, seeing a great invention of 

 this kind brought to their door, might have been desirous of 



explaining it to the boys of the school, and might have been 

 drawn out of their deep slumber of ages and done something for 

 the scientific education of the boys then at Eton. But no 

 thought of the kind ever entered into their minds, and the only 

 notice taken of it at the time was that they set it as the subject 

 for Greek verses. I and all the boys of my class commenced 

 racking our brains to write some Greek iambics upon a subject of 

 which we knew nothing, and to bring it into connexion with 

 the mythology of the ancients, of which we knew a good deal. 

 I refer to this for the purpose of showing you how little scienee 

 was promoted then at our public schools. I am glad to say that 

 things have been changed since then, but much has to be done 

 in this direction, and there cannot be a doubt that if this 

 country is to hold its own in the great industrial competition it 

 must give a greater place to science in our schools, and equalize 

 the endowments between the classical and scientific studies ; and 

 it is only by doing that I am persuaded that we can hold our own. 



Mr. Bruce, President of the Institute of Civil Engineers, and 

 Mr. Latimer Clark, past President of the Society of Telegraph 

 Engineers, replied ; and the latter, after alluding to the work 

 done by the brothers Brett in submarine telegraphy, said : — 

 I feel that we, as the representatives of applied science, have 

 been somewhat neglected by the world. I feel that the poli- 

 ticians, some of whom have honoured us by coming here this 

 evening, have very much neglected us. I don't allude to 

 honours, for we shall be very well content with the position of 

 things in that regard ; but I feel that they have robbed us of 

 much of our credit for the fact that the great effects of the 

 jubilee which we are now assembled to commemorate have been 

 due to the agency of the applied sciences. I do feel that poli- 

 ticians have been permitted to claim for themselves the credit 

 for the wondrous benefits civilization has received from the 

 eff"orts of applied science. We hear that so many shillings have 

 been taken off" a quarter of wheat, we hear that all the pro- 

 sperity of the country has been due to free trade, but I say it is 

 not so ; I say they have robbed us of our honours in saying 

 that ; I say as guild and craft we ought to proclaim loudly to the 

 world that to our efforts most of all the prosperity of the last 

 fifty years has been due. The population of this great city 

 and of this country when it eats its breakfast to-morrow morn- 

 ing will be consuming food a very large proportion of which 

 has been brought to this country by means of applied science. 

 It is that which has given us our prosperity. They have not 

 taken 55. or \os. a quarter off" wheat and corn and eatables, but 

 they have taken off" 6oj., 8oj., and loof. Wheat will be brought 

 to-morrow from places from which it could not have been 

 brought fifty years ago for ten times what it now costs. As a 

 guild and craft v/e ought to proclaim loudly that the benefits 

 which we have conferred are the real cause of the prosperity of 

 the great "Victorian era which we meet here to celebrate. 



The Earl of Onslow having proposed the health of the Chair- 

 man in a suitable address, and the Chairman having responded, 

 the proceedings terminated. 



The Postmaster-General, during the evening, despatched the 

 following telegram to Sir Henry Ponsonby, at Osborne : — " A 

 large dinner-party celebrating the jubilee of the electric tele- 

 graph, remember with gratitude and pride that all the progress 

 has taken place in the happy and prosperous reign of Her 

 Majesty and under her fostering care." 



To this the following reply was received: — "The Queen 

 thanks you for your telegram. It gives Her Majesty much 

 pleasure to reflect on the improvements which have been made 

 in Wheatstone's great invention, which was first practically 

 tested in her reign." 



THE CASE FOR A LONDON TEACHING 

 UNIVERSITY. 



'T'HE questions connected with the proposal for the establish- 

 ■*■ ment of a Teaching University in London were discussed 

 in a speech delivered by Sir George Young at the distribution of 

 prizes in the Medical Faculty of University College, London, 

 on June i, and in a speech delivered by Dr. J. E. Erichsen at 

 the distribution of prizes in the Faculties of Arts and Laws and 

 of Science, at the same institution on June 30. As the case for 

 a London Teaching University was stated by these two eminent 

 authorities, we reprint part of what they had to say on the sub- 

 ject from the point of view of University and King's Colleges. 



