196 



NATURE 



[May 3, 19 1 7 



b" Dr. Mohendro Lai Sircar, a practitioner of medi- 

 cine in the Indian quarter of Calcutta. 



At a time when Indian universities were the purely 

 examining bodies so dear to the Philistine soul, when 

 secondary education in India was mainly bookmongery 

 (to call it "literary" would be a fault to heaven), and 

 literary gentlemen were brought from England to 

 feed raw Indiaa youths \\ith husks of commentary 

 laboriously ground from the English classics, Dr. 

 Mohendro Lai Sircar, a medical man immersed in the 

 anxieties of a private practice, was probably the only 

 educated Indian in Bengal whose ideas of education 

 were approximately those held generally to-day by 

 men of science in Great Britain. 



Dr. Sircar, being beyond his learning and accom- 

 plishments a man of great sagacity and urbanity, did 

 not agitate or make a noise, but, with single-minded 

 devotion to higher issues, he set a-going in a con- 

 venient part of his native town, and for many years 

 carefully fostered, a society much of the style of the 

 Companies of Friends of Natural History, the aim of 

 which, to begin with, was, and had to be, generally 

 educative. This society was appropriately called an 

 association for the cultivation of science. By degrees, 

 and by the accretion of laboratories for particular 

 studies, the institution, while retaining an educational 

 character, advanced to the differentiated technical 

 stage ; and now, beyond its educational purpose, it has 

 become a well-organised and well-equipped institution 

 for original experimental research. 



The report for the year 1914, lately received, shows 

 that in addition to the seven regular courses of lec- 

 tures on different branches of science delivered to 

 students, there emanated from the association ten 

 original papers — four on physico-mathematical sub- 

 jects, five chemical, and one biological. 



NATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION.^ 

 nrHE British Science Guild, during the twelve years 

 •'• of its existence, has earnestly endeav'oured to pro- 

 mote the public and official recognition of scientific 

 research and of scientific organisation and methods as 

 essential factors in national progress. Our journal 

 and our annual reports show the matters to which we 

 have striven to direct attention. It is not our object 

 to secure the advancement of any particular branch 

 of science; each has an association created for that 

 purpose. We seek to provide what may be called a 

 clearing-house of progressive thought, in order that 

 activities which are mutually dependent may be har- 

 monised for the welfare of the State and the Empire, 

 and that the application of scientific knowledge not 

 only to industries, but also to every department of 

 public life, may become a reality. We believe that thus 

 only can our future national' advancement and the 

 well-being of our people be placed upon a sound and 

 an enduring foundation. 



These are objects which in the past have powerfully 

 appealed to men of science whose vision extended be- 

 yond the horizon of their labours to the conception of a 

 State in which research was not only encouraged as a 

 primary necessity of progress, but the results were 

 quickly applied to the direction of energy, the pre- 

 vention of waste, and the conservation of the forces on 

 which the prosperity of mankind mainly depends. 



Before the war, these were voices "crying in the 

 wilderness." Governments and Parliament, which is 

 supposed to control and inspire them, cared for none 

 of these things. In our great public offices science 

 was apt to be regarded as an abstruse mystery which 



1 From the presidential aHdress delivered at the annual meeting of th 

 British Srience Gu-Id, held at the Mansion House, London, on April 30 

 by the Right Hon. Lord Sydenham, F.R.S. 



NO. 2479, VOL. 99] 



possibly concerned business men and might sometimes 

 obtrude itself inf-onveniently upon public attention, but 

 had no part or lot in the administration. Sf>eaking 

 broadly, we have been ruled by men for whom scien- 

 tific conceptions and scientific methods had little or no 

 interest ; and partly from this cause our industries were 

 being stealthily undermined and were passing into the 

 control of another people which had laboriously organ- 

 ised all its public and private activities, had been 

 carefully trained quickly to turn scientific discoveries — 

 largely borrowed — to material advantage, and had be- 

 come obsessed with the mad ambition of imposing 

 its thewies of life and conduct by force upon the 

 world. 



The war has had the effect of turning a strong 

 searchlight upon the innermost workings of our 

 national life. Our weakness and our potential strength 

 stand plainly revealed. We can see how severely we 

 have suffered and must still suffer from our neglect in 

 the past ; and if we strive to ascertain causes, we cannot 

 fail to reach the conclusion that our lack of apprecia- 

 tion of all that science, using the term in the broadest 

 sense, could have conferred upon us lies at the root of 

 many present difficulties. When the question of con- 

 traband was being considered, science could have told 

 us what was vital to the prosecution of war by an 

 enemy, and what, therefore, we should use every effort 

 to exclude from his territories. Sir William Ramsay, 

 whose loss, as one of our greatest leaders of scientific 

 thought, we deplore, pointed out the gross fallacies 

 which were permitted to mislead our policy in regard 

 to cotton. Lard was assumed by one of our rulers to 

 be innocuous, because he was unaware that its use for 

 the manufacture of glycerine was an old discovery. 

 The painful revelations of the Dardanelles Commission 

 establish the facts that a fateful decision was arrived 

 at by methods which flagrantly violated scientific prin- 

 ciples, and that a complete misunderstanding as to 

 some elementary artillery matters was allowed to exist. 

 And now in the handling of the difficult questfon of 

 man power there is an evident want of the grasp 

 which sound scientific training can confer. 



It would be easy to multiply Instances of the ways 

 in which the absence of scientific habits of thought 

 have prejudiced the conduct of the war; but there is 

 another stde_ which must not be forgotten. If we have 

 too often failed in foresight and in the application of 

 orderlv methods to the direction of policy, the national 

 genius for improvisation has been strikingly manifested. 

 On the basis of a small Army, the best we ever 

 possessed, we have built up, transpoj-ted across the 

 seas, equipped, and supplied vast national forces which 

 have shown fighting power unrivalled in our military 

 annals, and have determined the final victory of the 

 cause of the Allies. And further, under the stress of 

 war, we brought science to bear on military require- 

 ments in such a wav as not only to overtake, but to 

 surpass, German appliances laboriouslv prepared in 

 years of peace. On a different plane, the war savings 

 propaganda is a good example of well-conceived and 

 successful effort. Nothing can be more certain than 

 that we possess organising capacity, which, if turned 

 to full account, can perfectly respond to the future 

 needs of the Empire. 



Reconstruction is now beginning to occupy the minds 

 of all thoughtful men and women. After- the- war 

 problems are being widely discussed, and amid their 

 baffling complexities some great principles stand out 

 as signposts along the path which we must follow. 



The material prosperity and the financial stability of 

 the country can be restored only bv an increase of pro- 

 duction and interchange. This implies the creation of 

 new industries and the economic development of those 

 which exist, combined with a firm hold on old markets 



