THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 157 



made to science in this country, and will be productive of 

 great benefit to humanity. The Lister Institute took its 

 origin in the surplus of a fund raised (at my suggestion 

 and with my assistance as secretary) by Sir James White- 

 head when Lord Mayor, some sixteen years ago, for the 

 purpose of making a gift to the Pasteur Institute in Paris, 

 where many English .patients had been treated, without 

 charge, after being bitten by rabid dogs. Three thousand 

 pounds was sent to M. Pasteur, and the surplus of a few 

 hundred pounds was made the starting-point of a fund 

 which grew, by one generous gift and another, until the 

 Lister Institute on the Thames Embankment at Chelsea 

 was set up on a site presented by that good and high- 

 minded man, the late Duke of Westminster. 



Many other noble gifts to scientific research have been 

 made in this country during the period on which we are 

 looking back. Let us be thankful for them, and admire 

 the wise munificence of the donors. But none the less 

 we must refuse to rely entirely on such liberality for the 

 development of the army of science, which has to do 

 battle for mankind against the obvious disabilities and 

 sufferings which afflict us and can be removed by know- 

 ledge. The organisation and finance of this army should 

 be the care of the State. 



It is a fact which many who have observed it regret 

 very keenly, that there is to-day a less widespread interest 

 than formerly in natural history and general science, out- 

 side the strictly professional arena of the school and 

 university. The field naturalists among the squires and 

 the country parsons seem nowadays not to be so numerous 

 and active in their delightful pursuits as formerly, and 

 the Mechanics' Institutes and Lecture Societies of the 

 days of Lord Brougham have given place, to a very large 

 extent, to musical performances, bioscopes, and other 



