64 



NATURE 



[September i6, 19 15 



the result of many costly blunders. The growth of 

 science and of commercial technology has been largely 

 independent and unrelated, that is, without organisation. 



The absence of this organisation has shown itself 

 for many years to those who are able to read the 

 signs of the times, by the way in which German 

 applied science has assisted commercial activity in 

 trespassing on markets created and formerly occupied 

 by British enterprise. The result of organised co- 

 operation on one hand and of disconnected effort on 

 the other, has now been brought home to us all, 

 suddenly and painfully, by the war. In the utilisation 

 of technical science the German army has had an 

 enormous advantage for which we have had to pay by 

 the lives of some of our best officers and men. 



In Germany the scientific, technical, and commer- 

 cial community (not communities) is mobilised, and 

 each individual in it has been given his appropriate 

 function. In this country, on the other hand, we still 

 have endless instances of right men in wrong places, 

 while scientific activity seems to be devoted to the 

 voluntary formation of innumerable and often irre- 

 sponsible committees, with overlapping functions and 

 with no apparent common aim in view. Nothing 

 could more clearly demonstrate our shortcomings in 

 organisation than the columns of the daily Press, 

 which are filled with complaints from scientific men 

 who, though among the most distinguished in the 

 world of pure science, are, in this great struggle, still 

 unemployed, and unfortunately often show by the tone 

 of their complaints that they are also unemployable. 



A small fraction of the time now devoted in this 

 country to discussion In committee would be sufficient, 

 if turned to well-directed effort, to remove many of the 

 handicaps from which our Navy and Army are now 

 suffering in this critical stage of the war. Most 

 committees might be justifiably likened to two 

 athletes at the east end of a church, discussing the 

 better route by which to get around to the tower, 

 while a cripple starts off at once by one of the routes 

 (possibly even by the less easy of the two) ; yet the 

 cripple gets there while the athletes are still wrangling. 



The root trouble with us is due to the fact that our 

 committees are generally composed of members ap- 

 pointed, not because they are the best able to solve 

 the problem in hand, but because they represent vested 

 interests, and vested interests have now grown to 

 dimensions beyond power of removal, because our 

 institutions are often the products of worthy local, un- 

 connected and therefore unorganised, effort. In their 

 relations to one another, Institutions that profess a 

 common public aim show a spirit of jealous com- 

 petition more prominently than any community of 

 ideal. One cannot study the recent history of univer- 

 sity education in London without being painfully im- 

 pressed with the fact that Internal friction In a machine 

 without design results in a consumption of energy that 

 costs more than the educational output is worth. 



Our scientific and technical societies similarly suffer 

 from overlapping and conflicting Interests, and this 

 conference will be of some value if, Instead of dis- 

 cussing for once some special scientific problem. Its 

 members become inspired with a desire to direct the 

 activities of the societies they represent so as to reduce 

 the quantity of machinery; to correlate their activities 

 with those of the metropolitan Institutions with head- 

 quarters in London ; to subdivide those institutions 

 composed of dissimilar elements, and to assist, so far 

 as practicable, the regrouping of those who work 

 with common data and with a common aim. 



An excellent illustration exists of the way In which 

 reform of this kind is possible when members are 

 sufficiently public-spirited to distinguish between the 

 wider interests of jcience and those of their own 



NO. 2394, VOL. 96] 



special societies. Up to 1889 there were in this 

 country about eight separate societies devoted to the 

 technical interests mainly of coal mining. In that 

 year four of these societies federated their interests, 

 and during the few following years three others joined 

 the federation and pooled their resources to meet the 

 cost of a common publication and to maintain a 

 common office at Newcastle. 



In 1892 the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy 

 was founded in London to meet the wants of tech- 

 nologists devoted mainly to the requirements of 

 metalliferous mining. The rapid growth of this insti- 

 tution, its metropolitan location, and its comprehen- 

 sive name, challenged the premier position of the 

 Federated Institution of Mining Engineers. The 

 latter consequently changed its name to The Institu- 

 tion of Mining Engineers, and moved its central office 

 to London. Thenceforward each institution, not only 

 published papers on its own special branch of mining, 

 but trespassed frequently on the natural domains of 

 its competitor. Later, when one of these institutions 

 applied for a Royal Charter, the other in its own in- 

 terests successfully opposed the application. 



But in 1913, through the happy possession of two 

 presidents who could distinguish parochial from 

 national interests^ both institutions agreed to a de- 

 limitation of their spheres of influence, and each sup- 

 ported with success the petition of the other for a 

 Royal Charter. They are now no longer competitors, 

 but sister Institutions, and, instead of competing for 

 recruits, they can afford to define and maintain a high 

 standard of technical qualification and professional 

 etiquette for the British mining engineer. 



One of the first principles observed by a student of 

 science is that of classification. Classification means 

 not merely the bringing together of things that are 

 similar In some essential feature; it also means the 

 separation of those that are essentially unlike, although 

 superficially bearing some form of resemblance. 



One realises how hard it is to apply the pruning 

 knife of scientific classification when one contemplates 

 the spectacle of various " literary and philosophical 

 societies" which still survive, mostly under financial 

 difficulties, in many of our large provincial cities, 

 vainly endeavouring to cover " the whole realm of 

 nature." Such societies, embracing the general range 

 of sciences, and sometimes even including literary sub- 

 jects, exist at Aberdeen (founded in 1840), Birming- 

 ham (1858), Cambridge (1819), Edinburgh (1731), 

 Glasgow (1802), Hull (1823), Leeds (1820), Manchester 

 (1781), Newcastle (1793), and York (1822), while at 

 Dublin, where individuality seems ever to flourish in 

 various departments of civilised activity, there are two 

 such societies with, apparently, partly overlapping 

 interests In general science — the Royal l5ublin Society, 

 founded in 173 1, and the Royal Irish Academy, founded 

 in 1785. 



There are not many among these societies the pub- 

 lications of which can be safely neglected by the 

 research worker in any of the specialised branches of 

 science, and yet most of them could not show an 

 average annual output of one serious paper In each 

 of the science subjects as defined by the twelve sec- 

 tions of the British Association. They become in turn 

 the fortunate victims of some local enthusiast, who, 

 in time, passes away like a comet or finds wider 

 scope for his ambitions, either in the Royal Society of 

 London or in the metropolitan society that governs 

 his own pet subject, where his products enjoy the 

 benefit of more thorough discussion, often with appre- 

 ciation, by fellow-experts. 



If we take the Literary and Philosophical Society of 

 this city (which for many years has devoted Itself 

 almost entirely to science, and issues memoirs which 



