6o6 



NATURE 



[January 28, 19 15 



regime. Of course, a State must maintain labora- 

 tories which undertake a certain amount of investiga- 

 tion in connection with its duties in the control of 

 disease, etc., but, though it may be difficult to draw 

 a defining line between research that arises out of 

 administration and research in pursuit of knowledge, 

 the distinction is easy to make in practice. For 

 example, the State needs a veterinary laboratory for 

 the purpose of checking the conclusions upon which 

 the administrative regul,ations regarding this or that 

 disease are based, and of testing serums, vaccines, 

 and the like, but it would prove false economy in the 

 end to entrust to this official institution the sole re- 

 sponsibility for investigations into animal diseases. 



Another advantage that arises from entrusting agri- 

 cultural research to the universities is that thereby 

 one obtains the advice, and often the active co-opera- 

 tion of men in the departments of pure science. I 

 have already indicated how complex are the questions 

 that agriculture raises ; the man who is working out 

 soil, problems may find one day that he is brought to a 

 standstill by some physical or even malTiematical 

 difficulty he is not competent to deal with, on another 

 occasion he may wish to consult a geologist, or again 

 a zoologist. No soil laboratory pure and simple can 

 afford to have men of all these qualifications upon 

 its strength, but if it is attached to a university, its 

 men are naturally in constant contact with other 

 specialists from whom they may informally obtain the 

 assistance they need. A special purpose laboratory 

 must suffer if it is isolated from the general current 

 of science, and this is particularly true of agriculture 

 with its many contacts, and the natural inclination to 

 locate its institutions in the country. Some link must 

 be maintained between the research institution and 

 the practical farmer, not so much for the sake of the 

 latter, because he is rarely in a position to utilise 

 directly, or even to understand, the work of the inves- 

 tigation, but in order to keep the work real and non- 

 academic. Even from the purely scientific point of 

 view the most fruitful lines of research are those sug- 

 gested by practical life ; many effects that prove to be 

 of fundamental imoortance to theory, onlv become 

 apparent in the large-scale workings of the commer- 

 cial undertaking. The contact with farming that the 

 research-worker needs should be provided by his asso- 

 ciation with the university department that is teach- 

 ing agriculture and advising the farmers of its dis- 

 trict ; thus is established the connection that on one 

 hand brings the farmer's problems to the investi- 

 gators, and on the other translates the investigators' 

 results into practical advice. As I see it, the ideal 

 organisation of research in agriculture is to associate 

 a more or less specialised institution for the investiga- 

 tion of a particular class of problem with a university 

 possessing an agricultural department, which is also 

 charged with extension work by wav of lectures and 

 advice within its own sphere of influence. How- 

 specialised the institution may become must depend 

 upon the numbers of universities available, but there 

 is a real economy in specialisation, in inducing each 

 institution to throw its whole strength into one line 

 of work, for universities, like men, cannot afford to 

 be Jacks of all trades. 



Many of my hearers may think I am sketching out 

 a very ambitious and extensive programme about 

 which the only certaintv is the creation of a consider- 

 able number of salaried posts for men of science, but 

 when T think of the futilities upon which so much 

 public money is spent in ever}' country, I am almost 

 ashamed to justify the expenditure bv pointing out 

 that an increase of lo per cent, in any one of the 

 staple crops of a countrv, such an increase as is well 

 within the powers of the scientific man to effect in 



NO. 2361, VOL. 94"! 



no great length of time, would pay over and over 

 again for the organisation 1 have indicated. Even if 

 the research went on for the sake of knowledge alone, 

 every nation is able to allow itself a certain amount 

 of intellectual luxury. Moreover, to return to my 

 original text, it is only by the aid of agricultural 

 science that the world is ultimately going to be allowed 

 to enjoy any luxuries at all ; as the fundamentally 

 agricultural basis of -society again becomes apparent, 

 the one thing that will save it from sinking down into 

 a collection of families each wringing a bare subsist- 

 ence from a tiny plot of ground will be the application 

 of the fullest knowledge to the utilisation of the land. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Birmingham. — In consequence of the abnormal con- 

 ditions created by the war, the election to the Poynting 

 chair of physics has been postponed, and Dr. G. A. 

 Shakespear has been appointed acting professor of 

 physics. 



Edinburgh. — Dr. G. L. Gulland has been appointed 

 to the chair of medicine, vacant through the resigna- 

 tion of Prof. Wyllie. 



London. — It is announced that Sir Henry Miers, 

 F.R.S., has resigned the principalship of the L niver- 

 sity in order to accept the appointment of Vice- 

 ChanccUor of Manchester University. The resigna- 

 tion has been accepted by the Senate with great 

 regret. Sir Henry Miers was appointed principal in 

 1908, in succession to Sir Arthur Riicker, F.R.S. He 

 was formerly Waynflete professor of mineralogy at 

 Oxford. 



Oxford. — On January 26 Convocation gratefully 

 accepted a sum of 450Z. offered to the University by 

 friends of the late Prof. Gotch, with the view of 

 perpetuating the memory of the late Waynflete pro- 

 fessor, and of encouraging the study of physiology 

 within the University. The income of the fund will 

 be applied, first, to the establishment of a Gotch 

 memorial prize to be awarded annually, after exam- 

 ination, to a student in the physiological laboratory ; 

 and, secondly, to the creation and maintenance of 

 a Gotch memorial library in the same laboratory. A 

 portrait of Prof. Gotch is now hung on the walls of 

 the department which was the scene of his fruitful 

 labours. 



In the same Convocation leave of absence was 

 given to Prof. G. C. Bourne, Linacre professor of 

 comparative anatomy, who is engaged in military 

 service. Mr. E. S. Goodrich is acting meanwhile as 

 the professor's deputy. 



The books bequeathed to the University' by the late 

 Prof. Ingram By water, are stated by Sir William 

 Osier, F.R.S., regius professor of medicine, to be of 

 high value and interest. 



The Secretar}- of State for India has appointed Mr. 

 L. G. Owen to be professor of mathematics at the 

 Government College, Rangoon. He has also ap- 

 pointed Mr. W. Fvfe to the post of Instructor in 

 Manual Training for the Madras Presidency. 



Among the bequests included in the will of the late 

 Dr. I. Burnev Yeo, emeritus professor of medicine at 

 King's College, London, are 3000Z. to the Royal Medi- 

 cal Benevolent College, Epsom, and 5000Z. to King's 

 College (London) Hospital Medical School for a 

 " Burnev Yeo Fund " to be used for furthering the 

 success of the school. 



The London County Council has arranged for a 

 free course of lectures to be given at the Horniman 



