February 26, 1920] 



NATURE 



691 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for 

 opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither 

 can he undertake to return, or to correspond wtth 

 the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for 

 this or any other part of Nature. No notice is 

 taken of anonymous communications.] 



Organisation of Scientific Work. 

 I TRUST the rank and file of scientific investigators 

 throughout the Empire will wake up to the urgent 

 need of combined energetic action. The proposals to 

 centralise under the control of a few official depart- 

 mental heads the body of actual scientific investigators 

 in India, thus creating a few highly paid administra- 

 tive posts for senior men and effectually killing all 

 initiative, enthusiasm, and liberty of action on the 

 part of those actuallv carrying on the investigations, 

 is perfectly in accord with what has happened in 

 this country since, in an evil day, the Government 

 assumed the control of scientific and industrial re- 

 search. It is a proposal that appeals, naturally, _ to 

 the official without knowledge of the way in which 

 scientific discoveries originate, and anxious to secure 

 a body of cheap and docile labour, even though it be 

 mediocre in calibre, and to those few who hope to 

 secure for themselves these senior lucrative administra- 

 tive posts. To genuine investigators such posts, how- 

 ever highly paid, would be unattractive, and under 

 such a system there seems every inducement for men 

 of originality and scientific ability to give the service 

 a wide berth. Whereas the crying need in India, as 

 everywhere, is for men of high calibre and honest, 

 independent mental outlook, anxious only to secure 

 favourable conditions under which they may be left 

 free to pursue their creative work, and, this being 

 • secured, careless of wealth, rank, and power save as 

 the necessary antecedents to the essential condition. 



Two assertions, which can be made without the 

 slightest fear of contradiction, may be put into juxta- 

 position in order to contrast the remedy proposed with 

 the state of things it is desired to cure. First, that 

 of all great nations the British Empire has most 

 signally failed in its application of scientific know- 

 ledge "and methods to its national problems; and, 

 secondly, that in the British Empire there exists a 

 body of 'skilled and hard-working scientific investigators 

 second to none, and, even under the most disheartening 

 conditions, actuallv enlarging the boundaries of natural 

 knowledge in no mean degree. As the great schemes 

 for rectifying matters crystallise into action, with the 

 formation of a Deoartment of Scientific and Industrial 

 Research at home and concrete proposals for action, 

 as in the Indian reorganisation suggested, more and 

 more thev seem to amount to this : The men who 

 do the work, and against whom no fault is alleged, are 

 to bo deprived even of what little satisfaction and 

 independence genuine scientific work for its own sake 

 affords, and are to be put under the men against whose 

 incompetence and lack of knowledge the whole uproar 

 originally arose. In research, where, as the leading 

 article in Nature of February .19 so truly says, the 

 man is everything, that man is to be put under iricn 

 who brought an Empire, as rich in scientific talent 

 and genius as any, perilously low. The remedv, 

 surely, is to put the incompetent machine under the 

 charge of competent men, not vice versa. 



Our soi-disant scientific representatives seem still 

 in the stage once lived through in our ancient uni- 

 versities, where it was at one time deemed politic that 

 anv scientific demand, if it were to pass, should be put 

 up' and seconded bv well-known opponents of science, 

 thus, on the chance of securing a temporary advance, 

 permanently sacrificing the whole future. That we 

 did not in 1914-19 repeat the medical horrors of the 

 NO. 2626, VOL. 104] 



Boer War, when more died of pestilence than at the 

 hands of the foe, is surely due to the emancipation 

 in the interval of the Army medical services from non- 

 qualified misdirection. That our food control during 

 war-time was successful, even by comparison with 

 that of more favourably situated belligerents, was 

 because scientific men were from the first in charge 

 of its scientific aspects — a rare condition, due probably 

 to so many of them belonging to the profession that 

 exacts due' and proper respect for its members. Can 

 one imagine young medical graduates, after a pro- 

 longed and serious university training, being sent 

 up, as our scientific graduates were sent, hauling 

 about gas cylinders with the rank of corporal? Can 

 one imagine a director of a medical research associa- 

 tion a foreign business man or manufacturer unknown 

 to the research world? Can one imagine a proposal 

 for State aid for medical research being dismissed by 

 an unqualified person so ignorant of the history of 

 scientific discovery as to deem it sufficient to dub the 

 proposal as a " floating research " in order in his own 

 eves to condemn it? Neither can I imagine such 

 happening in the scientific world if its leaders were 

 equally alive. 



Ordinary people, benevolent to science and un- 

 familiar with affairs, often wonder why scientific men 

 are so powerless and peculiarly unable to protect 

 themselves and to advance their subjects to a position 

 commensurate with their national importance. The 

 answer is to be found, I think, in the obsolete 

 character of their so-called representative societies. 

 Year after year in the chief of these the councils 

 nominate and elect themselves without any reference 

 to their members except for formal ratification. 

 Through sheer lack of backbone and being out of 

 contact with the body of their members, time_ and 

 again they sacrifice interests vital to the continued 

 existence of genuine scientific research. I do not 

 wish to advocate for scientific investigators a close 

 corporation keeping Ivnx-eved vigil over their pro- 

 fessional interests and seeking every ooportunity to 

 enlarge and consolidate them, identical with other 

 learned professions ; for the paramount interest of a 

 scientific investigator should be his work, and his 

 privileges, emoluments, and status are to be regarded 

 merely as means necessary to secure opportunity and 

 power to do it. That should be the test of these 

 schemes, and not the further subordination of the 

 men who do the work to the organisation attempting 

 to get the work done. But unless they band 

 together and take action, the rank and file of re- 

 search workers throughout the Empire will not even 

 be able to retain the miserable position they occupied 

 before the war in the national life, and their interests 

 will continue to be sacrificed to the ambitions and 

 love of power of the few. Frederick Soddv. 



The "Notes" columns of Nature for February 19 

 contained a reference to a suggested conference 

 between British botanists at home and overseas at 

 which matters of common interest would be discussed. 

 From some preliminary correspondence which had 

 taken place in order to' ascertain the feeling of our 

 colleagues overseas as to the prospects of success of 

 such a conference some interesting communications 

 were received, especially from India, which bear on 

 the subject of the organisation of scientific work. 

 It was urged that this should form a subject for 

 discussion in the event of a conference taking place, 

 and it was evident that the writers were strongly 

 opposed to a policv of centralisation. On the con- 

 trary, thev were seeking greater freedom in their 

 scientific work, and their communications hinted at 

 irritating restrictions and disastrous results due to 

 official interference— effects which would be much 



