222 



NATURE 



[January 3, 1901 



educating the large majority of the population, Prussia, 

 which, with the rest of the German States, had profited by 

 Luther's appeal in favour of the education of the people, 

 had occupied herself, crushed though she was after Jena, 

 with the founding of universities and with the highest 

 education ; while live seats of learning in great numbers 

 were being founded in the United States. The begin- 

 ning of the new century, then, finds us in a position which 

 every day differs more and more from that occupied by 

 us in the old one, for not only are our natural resources 

 relatively reduced in value, but our intellectual resources 

 are not sufficiently superior to those of other nations to 

 enable us to retam our old position by force of brains. 



But even this statement does not truly paint the 

 situation. From time to time since this journal was 

 started in 1869, it has been our duty to insist upon our 

 relative deficiencies in regard to the advancement of 

 science and the higher scientific instruction. Thus, in the 

 very first volume of Nature, the absence here of the 

 great facilities and encouragement given in Germany to 

 these matters was clearly indicated. As an early instance 

 of the result of this state of things we may refer to Mr. 

 Perkin's account, in 1885,^ of the migration of the coal- 

 tar industry to Germany. In later years ample proof has 

 been adduced that in many directions the present British 

 intellectual equipment is not only not superior, but actually 

 inferior to that of other countries, and none too soon the 

 matter is engaging attention in the daily press. Within the 

 last week the Times, Daily Mail and Pall Mall Gazette 

 have called special attention to the reasons which may 

 be assigned for this new and alarming state of things ; 

 a writer in the Fortnightly has gone so far as to ask, 

 "Will England last the Century?" while Sir Henry 

 Roscoe has expressed his opinions in a letter to the Times 

 as follows : — 



" There can be no manner of doubt that a crisis in 

 our national well-being has already been reached. The 

 news brought to us from all quarters proves that our 

 industrial and commercial prosperity is being rapidly 

 undermined. The cry that we are being outbid on all 

 sides by Germany and America is no new one, but it 

 becomes louder and louder every day, and now it is 

 admitted by all those best qualified to judge that, unless 

 some drastic steps are taken to strengthen our educa- 

 tional position in the direction long ago taken up by 

 our competitors, we stand to lose, not merely our indus- 

 trial supremacy, but the bulk of our foreign trade. . . . 

 The only policy at this time is to strain every nerve to 

 place the country educationally on a level with its neigh- 

 bours. No effort, no expenditure, is too great to secure 

 this result, and unless our leaders, both in statecraft and 

 in industry, are quickly aroused to the critical condition 

 of our national affairs in this respect, and determine at 

 once to set our house in order, our children and grand- 

 children may see England sink to the level of a third-rate 

 Power ; for upon education, the basis of industry and 

 commerce, the greatness of our country depends." 



We must confess that when we come to consider the 

 panaceas suggested by these writers we find much more 

 vagueness than might be expected, and some suggestions 

 which are entirely beside the mark. 



Thus we are told that now our Colonies are being more 

 closely united to us we may rest and be thankful ; that 



1 Nature, vol. xxxii. p. 343. 

 NO. 1627, VOL. 63] 



American industry depends for its success upon the 

 extreme youth of those who are at the head of affairs. 

 Education is referred to as if there were no differences 

 in the methods employed, and finally a newly-developed 

 sloth is suggested as the origin of the apparent decad- 

 ence of the most athletic nation in the world. 



The question arises, Is there no scientific method open 

 to us to get at the real origin of the causes which have 

 produced the present anxiety ? 



M. Maurice L^vy, in his allocation, did England the 

 honour to point out how large a share Newton had in 

 founding the industries on which our commercial great- 

 ness in the last century was based. It seems to us to 

 be our duty, at the beginning of the new century, 

 to suggest that at this critical time it would be criminal 

 to neglect the labours of another great Englishman — 

 Darwin —which may be appealed to to help us to see 

 what has gone wrong and to forecast what the future has 

 in store for us if we apply the suggested remedies or if we 

 neglect them. In this we possess an advantage over our 

 forerunners. Those labours have shown the working of 

 an inexorable law which applies exactly to the conditions 

 under which we find ourselves. 



The enormous and unprecedented progress in science 

 during the last century has brought about a perfectly 

 new state of things, in which the " struggle for existence " 

 which Darwin studied in relation to organic forms is now 

 seen, for the first time, to apply to organised communities, 

 not when at war with each other, but when engaged in 

 peaceful commercial strife. It is a struggle in which the 

 fittest to survive is no longer indicated by his valour and 

 muscle and powers of endurance, but by those qualities 

 in which the most successful differs most from the rest. 

 We must accept the conclusion that, with material outfits 

 now much more equally distributed for this struggle for 

 existence, if Britain be at a disadvantage in relation to 

 any other nation with regard to these qualities, it must 

 go under if such a condition of things is allowed to go 

 on. If this appeal to a natural law leads to such a dire 

 conclusion, it is the duty of every Briton, from the 

 highest to the lowest, to see to it that some efficient 

 remedy be applied without delay. 



It follows from what has already been stated that we 

 need not look for these national differences among natural 

 products for the reason that, day by day, such differences 

 are being levelled by the present ease and rapidity of 

 intercommunication. 



We do not think that the differences will be found in 

 any very great degree in our primary and technical 

 instruction as it is going on to-day. 



If we regard our primary, secondary and higher edu- 

 cation, it must be acknowledged that great improvements 

 have been carried out during the last quarter of a century. 

 The establishment of new universities, adapted to the 

 present conditions of civihsation, in several great centres 

 and the promise of more, has clearly shown that, in the 

 opinion of our most important mercantile communities, 

 strong measures are necessary, and that they are pre- 

 pared to make great pecuniary sacrifices to carry them 

 out. Still, the facts show that what has already been done 



