NA TURE 



\o\ 



Thursday; may 12, 1910. 

 iwe death . of the. king. 



1^ ING EDWARD THE SEVENTH is no 

 -•■^ more. An Empire is in mourning. The 

 death of the King has come with a suddenness 

 which has stunned his people, who, however, 

 have already given no uncertain signs of the 

 deep love and respect they entertained for a 

 ruler who always strove to do his duty. Her 

 Majesty the Queen-Mother and the other mem- 

 bers of the Royal -Family know full well that they 

 are not the only nioumers, and that the sympathy 

 of milliDns in the widest Empire the world has 

 known, and others outside it, is extended to 

 them in their personal loss. 



We can answer for it that the grief of the 

 leaders and students of science in the realm 

 is as deep as that of any of their fellow citizens. 

 They do not forget that the late King was the 

 son of the Prince Consort, one of the highest 

 products of the German university system, in 

 which science always finds a place, through 

 whose influence the importance to this nation 

 of the study and fostering of science and art 

 was first recognised, and whose early death, it 

 has been said, was niore harmful to Britain 

 than the loss of a great campaign. With such 

 a wise father it is not to be wondered at that 

 the late King began his university studies by 

 attending Playfair's lectures on chemistry (in 

 1861) when he was twenty years of age. For 

 this reason, again, it is not to be wondered at 

 that among the innumerable public duties the 

 King performed since, as Prince of Wales, 

 he opened the great railway bridge across the 

 St. Lawrence at Montreal, many of those in 

 which he exhibited the keenest interest have 

 had to do with the opening or extension of in- 

 stitutions connected with science. 



If there were anything like a complete or- 

 ganisation of science in England, we may be 

 certain the King's interest in it, great as it 

 was, would have been greater still. The or- 

 ganisation of science means a scientific depart- 

 ment of the State ; this means a Minister of 

 Science in the immediate entourage of the 

 sovereign. 



How much we might have gained, great 

 though the late King's work in this direction 

 has been, we can gather from what has been 

 accomplished by the King's actions in scientific 



matters on which he was kept informed and in- 

 terested, not by a Minister of State, but by the 

 eminent representatives of medical science at- 

 tached to his person. 



Since the late King's accession to the throne 

 it ma)' be said that the enormous expansion and 

 amelioration of ever>'thing that has to do with 

 the healing of sickness and the lessening of 

 all the ills which follow on it are mainly due 

 to his unceasing efforts to secure a better or-' 

 ganisation of hospitals and of the nursing staff 

 throughout the land. 



In the various addresses which the late King 

 delivered during a period of fort\' 5-ears before 

 his accession to the throne, and since, on the 

 occasions of the calling into being of new Eng- 

 lish colleges and universities, and on other 

 similar functions, the note of the importance 

 of the advancement of science to the nation was 

 almost invariably struck. On one of the last 

 public appearances of this nature, that of laying 

 the first stone of the new buildings of the Im- 

 perial College of Science and Technolog\-, in 

 July of last year, the King said: — "In recent 

 years the supreme importance of higher scientific 

 education has, I am happy to say, been fully 

 recognised in England ; and as time goes on I 

 feel more and more convinced that the pros- 

 perity-, even the very safety and existence, of our 

 country depend on the quality of the scientific 

 and technical training of those who are to g^ide 

 and control our industries." TTiis and other 

 similar utterances have shown that in the 

 late King science had a firm friend, and 

 that his action for good wouldi have been 

 greater still if representatives of science were 

 to be found among the King's ministers. 



Although it is incumbent upon us to refer 

 chiefly to the late King's activities and marks 

 of sympathy in scientific directions, we must 

 at the same time point out his vast services to 

 the nation in other, almost innumerable, ways. 

 An ardent apostle of peace, the whole world 

 was his debtor ; and not science alone has gained 

 bv his anxiety to foster the arts of peace by 

 honouring those engaged in their pursuit. 



In past times only national services in war 

 were distinguished by the sovereign's mark of 

 approval ; King Edward did not hesitate to 

 confer marks of honour upon the most eminent 

 representatives of science, art, literature, com- 

 merce and industn,-. We owe to him the 

 foundation of the Order of Merit, the highest 



NO. 21 15, VOL. 83] 



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