August 22, 19 18] 



NATURE 



485 



ducing and 'bringing forward int» general use new 

 inventions and improvements, particularly such as 

 relate to the management of heat and the saving of 

 fuel, and to various other mechanical contrivances by 

 which domestic comfort and economy may be pro- 

 moted. 



Rumford, as he says in one of his letters to 

 Thomas Bernard, who was associated with him 

 in this project, was 



deeply impressed with the necessity of rendering it 

 fashiovable to care for the poor and indigent. 



A " Society for Bettering the Condition of the 

 Poor " was duly founded, but as regards' the asso- 

 ciated institution it was decided that it would be 



too conspicuous, and too interesting and important, 

 to be made an appendix to any other existing estab- 

 lishment, and consequently it must stand alone, and 

 on its own proper basis. 



In 1799 Rumford again broached the subject of 

 his institution for promoting domestic comfort and 

 economy, and conferred with the committee of 

 the " Society for Bettering the Condition of the 

 Poor" concerning the steps to be taken in order 

 to establish, 



by private subscription, a public institution for dif- 

 fusing the knowledge and facilitating the general and 

 speedy introduction of new and useful mechanical in- 

 ventions and improvements ; and also for teiaching, by 

 regular courses of philosophical lectures and experi- 

 ments, the applications of the new discoveries in 

 science to the improvement of arts and manufac- 

 tures, and in facilitating the means of procuring the 

 comforts and conveniences of life. 



It is unnecessary to state the steps by which 

 the sympathies of people of rank and fortune were 

 enlisted in this enterprise. The moral, social, and 

 political conditions of the time were not without 

 their influence. The idea, as Rumford hoped, 

 became fashionable, and, being fashionable, 

 became popular. Mr. Mellish's house in Albe- 

 marle Street was secured as the future home of 

 the institution, and its spacious apartments were 

 quickly transformed into lecture-rooms, museums, 

 library, and offices. Moreover, " a good cook was 

 engaged for the improvement and advancement of 

 the culinary art — one object, and' not the least 

 important — for the Royal Institution." The presi- 

 dent of. the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks, who 

 had taken an active part in promoting its founda- 

 tion, was chosen as the first chairman of its 

 board of managers, Rumford became secretary, 

 and Bernard treasurer. The second volume of 

 the " Reports of the Society for Bettering the 

 Condition of the Poor " contains a long account 

 of the institution, "so far as it may be expected 

 to affect the poor," from the pen of the treasurer, 

 concerning which Dr. Bence Jones, a former secre- 

 tary and the historian of the foundation, dryly 

 remarks : " It is difficult to believe that the Royal 

 Institution of the present day was ever intended 

 to resemble the picture given of it in this report." 



.\lthough ushered into the world under such 

 favourable auspices, the enthusiasm which greeted 

 its birth quickly spent itself, and the infant in- 

 stitution had a struggling and precarious exist- 

 NO. 2547, VOL. lOl] 



ence. The first appointments of the managers 

 were not altogether fortunate. Rumford, by his 

 arbitrary action, soon created difficulties and 

 alienated powerful supporters. But the advent of 

 Humphry Davy, a small, spare Cornish youth 

 of twenty-three, was the turning-point in its 

 career. On Garnett's resignation in 1801 as 

 lecturer in chemistry, Davy, who had already given 

 proofs of his ability, succeeded to that position. 

 By his extraordinary and rapid success as an in- 

 vestigator, and by a series of discoveries which 

 profoundly impressed the scientific world, com- 

 bined with his eloquence and power as a lecturer 

 and his remarkable gift of lucid exposition, he 

 quickly changed the whole current of its fortunes, 

 and during the twelve years he occupied its chair 

 of chemistry he gradually stamped upon it the 

 main features of its present character. 



The theme of the lecture which the managers 

 have now reprinted was not unfamiliar to Davy's 

 audiences, for, although presented under the guise 

 of a new plan, its general purport had been dealt 

 with by him on several previous occasions. Its 

 leading ar'gument is, in fact, almost identical with 

 that of the no less historic discourses with which 

 he took the fashionable world of London by storm 

 in 1802 ; and it was repeated in 1809 when he 

 referred to the fund which had been raised to 

 supply him with a powerful voltaic battery, and 

 to which he again alludes with equal pleasure and 

 appreciation in this reprinted address. But in the 

 lecture of 1810 he enters, with his characteristic 

 felicity of phrase, into rather more detail concern- 

 ing what he considers to be the true function of 

 the Royal Institution, and, oq the basis of his ten 

 years' experience of its working, indicates the 

 means by which he considers its aims might be 

 secured. Although he is careful to explain, with 

 that tact and "flexibility of adaptation" which 

 were among the secrets of his success in guiding 

 the fortunes of the institution, that he is only to 

 be regarded as an unofficial exponent of what he 

 apprehends to be in the minds of the managers, 

 visitors, and proprietors, his audience could have 

 been in little doubt with whom the principles of 

 the plan originated. 



In 1810 it was fully realised that the continued 

 existence of the institution depended upon Davy, 

 and he certainly was not unconscious of that fact. 

 He was then thirty-two years of age and near the 

 summit of his scientific fame. But however proud 

 the patrons of the institution might be of the 

 achievements of their professor, and however 

 grateful they might feel to him for the lustre he 

 had conferred upon it, its financial position 

 afforded no assurance of even a moderate pro- 

 vision for his future. He had become a social force 

 in what he had styled "the great hot-bed of 

 human power," and his society was courted by 

 all. But the roseate vision of affluence which he 

 had conjured up wheu exchanging the Pneumatic 

 Institution of Beddoes for the Royal Institution of 

 Rumford had been gradually dissipated in the 

 fuller light of his knowledge of a position which 

 depended upon, the vagaries of fashion and the 

 fickleness of popular favour. .\t this time he had 



