February 14, 1901] 



NATURE 



379 



the stafif who are required to retire at three months' notice are 

 justified in asking for the inquiry into the working of the C Jllege, 

 for which they have petitioned in their memorial of Die. 27, igoD. 

 We therefore desire to express our hops that the Secretary of 

 State for India will see his way to grant their request, and to 

 suspend proceedings until an adequate inquiry by competent 

 persons shall have been held. 



Lord Kelvin, as reported in the Times, said he represented 

 374 signatures with respect to the seven dismissals from the 

 Engineering College. He had received letters of apology from 

 Sir Batty Tuke, who expressed the conviction that a great in- 

 justice had been done ; from Sir Richard Jebb, who expressed 

 the opinion that the 'dismissals were harsh and derogatory to 

 science and deterrent to good men ; from Col. Milward, from 

 Prof. Oliver Lodge, who said the professors had been treated 

 like pawns ; Sir Douglas Fox wrote as an ex-governor of the 

 college who had received no notice of this proposed ''drastic 

 change." Sir Douglas Fox said that certain changes had been 

 suggested to the board of visitors, and among these the super- 

 session of two out of the staff; but he was astonished to find 

 seven men dismissed. 



Lord George Hamilton said that all who were present signed 

 the report. Sir D. Fox was wrong. 



Lord Kelvin said he had read in the Stan far d xhdi.^ the board 

 of visitors were unanimous. But the letter of November 2 — 

 the origin of the change — was founded on recommendations of 

 the board of visitors at that date, and those recommendations 

 did not propose that seven gentlemen should be dismissed. *It 

 was clear that the general public looked upon the board of 

 visitors as the governing body, and in so doing were resting 

 on a broken reed. The board appeared to have had little to 

 do with the matter. The object of the memorial was three- 

 fold — (i) To protest earnestly in the public interest against 

 the proposal for the sudden and arbitrary dismissal of seven 

 out of fourteen of the staff of the college ; (2) to call attention 

 to the continued prosperity of the college and the need for 

 reform in the curriculum ; (3) to express a hope that the Secre- 

 tary of State would countermand these changes, until adequate 

 inquiry was made and they were shown to be necessary for 

 the good of the college. Sir Horace Walpole rested the case 

 on economy. Now the cost of the whole scientific staff was 

 7970/., and the fees were 22,143/., or about 36 percent, of 

 the receipts for tuiiion. When the number of students did not 

 fall below 121 there was a surplus ; and thus retrenchment 

 could hardly be the real reason. The proposed change would 

 effect a saving of 2750/. ; and certainly economy at the 

 expense of efficiency was a great mistake. The dismissal 

 was sprung upon the threatened persons, and was certainly not 

 creditable. One of them — an old pupil of hio own — described 

 it as a blow in the dark, and said he could not understand it. 

 It might, his correspondent said, have been desirable to reduce 

 the number, but it was inconceivable that the abolition of the 

 professorships of chemistry and of physics and of the posts of 

 demonstrator of physics and of instructor of physics should 

 have been recommended by the b(jard of visitors. The 

 chemistry for the future, it appeared, was only to be such as 

 should enable engineers to understand the statements of results 

 of professed chemists. There was to be no electricity or 

 magnetism. Did the authors of this scheme know anything 

 of the requirements of engineering? Electrical engineer- 

 ing was still on the list. That was an applied science ; and 

 thus we had a British Government '"college, teaching the appli- 

 cation but not the fundamental principles of a science. Was 

 that worthy of this country? The public might fairly expect 

 that the present staff would, at all events, continue to the end 

 of the present year, as entering students could hardly be de- 

 prived of adequate teaching of the full curriculum of subjects. 

 The Secretary of State himself had borne testimony to the ex- 

 cellence of the college — even so recently as last year. There 

 might have been some falling oflF, but a high standard 

 was kept up. There had, no doubt, been some complaints, 

 and from India the telegraphy course was found fault 

 with. But that course was not intended to be exhaustive, 

 but was to be supplemented by other members of the 

 staff. But there was no complaint about anv candidate who 

 entered the Public Works Department of Indi'. In the tele- 

 graph department two gentlemen were admitted into the public 

 service whom Coopers Hill refused to certify. He earnestly 

 hoped the noble lord would let the existing prospectus be that 



NO. 1633, VOL. 63] 



of 1900, and that Colonel Ottley and his staff would contrive 

 to work together and remove causes of mutual friction. Discip- 

 line, law and order were doubtless necessary, but they might 

 be harshly enforced ; and of these gentlemen there was no 

 recorded complaint. 



Lord Lister said there were two questions ; one the manner 

 of the dismissal, and the other the expediency of the changes in 

 the curriculum. On the first he needed to add nothing to what 

 Lord Kelvin had said. Such a step was a great discouragement 

 to those who wished to follow a scientific career ; such appoint- 

 ments were rare, and a man's life work might be abruptly 

 stopped by such treatment as was being accorded. In his own 

 profession he had to lament the tendency of examining bodies 

 to abolish or minimise scientific training. 



Lord Rayleigh said that unless such educational posts under 

 the Crown were reasonably secured, there would be great 

 difficulty in getting good men. Of the men to be dismissed he 

 had personal knowledge of some, and Prof. McLeod was a man 

 of world-wide repute among chemists. 



Sir Henry Roscoe was sure that Lord George Hamilton had 

 acted for the best ; but they were convinced that he was mis- 

 taken. The dismissal of these men without notice was subver- 

 sive of the interests of science and prejudicial to the college itself. 

 Prof. H. E. Armstrong said that these gentlemen's colleagues 

 felt the action of the Government to be a positive affront. 

 None of the signatories to the memorial, he thought, objected 

 to a careful revision of the subjects and methods of the college ; 

 but that was another matter. If the new teaching of chemistry 

 was to be such as had been described, it would be better to drop 

 the subject altogether. If our engineers of India had been com- 

 petent chemists they would have been able to advise the indigo 

 planters and prevent the transfer of a trade of three millions to 

 German planters. 



Dr. G. [. Stoney said the letter of appointment to 

 Coopers Hill was that it was tenable so long as the work 

 was satisfactory ; but with the proviso of three months' 

 notice, without cause assigned on either side. The substan- 

 tive clause and the proviso ought to have been read together, 

 and the proviso ought not to render the words of the clause 

 nugatory. The proviso was only to prescribe the method of 

 dismissal if the work was not efficiently done. The interpre- 

 tation of the proviso acted upon by the authorities virtually 

 overrode the words of the substantive clause. 



Lord George Hamilton, in replying to the deputation, is 

 reported by the Standard to have said that as soon as he 

 received a memorial to which were attached such distinguished 

 signatures he felt it his duty to take the first opportunity 

 of meeting the gentlemen who had expressed such interest 

 in the future well-being of Coopers Hill College. He was 

 under the impression when he read the memorial that it 

 was based entirely on certain suppositions, and the more he 

 listened to the speeches the clearer was it to him that the great 

 mass of the signatories had, under some misapprehension, 

 attached their names to the memorial. He had the honour of 

 seeing a number of gentlemen whose names were household 

 words all over the world as investigators in original 

 science, and who had made discoveries of the utmost benefit to 

 mankind. He ventured to point out that the memorial as 

 drawn up would reverse the process by which they had achieved 

 fame. That fame had been attained by an investigation into 

 the phenomena of facts, and this memorial asked for an 

 inquiry, but every speaker had with the utmost confidence 

 pronounced an opinion upon the subjects on which he asked 

 for investigation. He did not in the least find fault with the 

 signatories, who had been misled, nor could he attach any blame 

 to himself. The Coopers Hill Staff had adopted a very unusual 

 and inconvenient course. They had a perfect right to protest 

 against any action which they thought prejudicial to their 

 personal interest, and to press the India Office to reconsider the 

 question, but they sent a memorial to himself, and before it was 

 possible to consider it they at once embarked in a newspaper 

 agitation, with letters written by the gentlemen themselves or 

 by their friends. He wished to explain very fully the reasons 

 for the action the India Office had taken, and then he would 

 ask the deputation whether, when the facts had been brought 

 before them, the India Office could have acted otherwise than 

 they had done. He then gave a short history of the foundation of 

 Coopers Hill. From the outset the College had been a financial 

 failure, and it had placed a considerable burden upon the revenues 

 of India, and until quite recently there was a considerable deficit . 



