NEW CONCEPTIONS IN SCIENCE 



and no club in London is more inviting. The 

 membership fee is ten pounds a year, and the list 

 is large. No wonder, for a tolerably assiduous at- 

 tendance affords an opportunity to listen to and 

 to make the acquaintance of the most famous and 

 most interesting men of the time. 



There are but three professorships. Like those 

 of the College de France, their duties are light 

 and the opportunities for research are wide. The 

 system is ideal; yet, considering the number of 

 chairs, it is simply a marvel that a single institu- 

 tion in a single century could show such a roster 

 of great names, such an array of genuine achieve- 

 ments. It would be hardly too much to say that, 

 during this hundred years of its existence, the 

 Royal Institution alone has done more for Eng- 

 lish science than all of the English universities put 

 together. This is certainly true with regard to 

 British industry, for it was here that the discov- 

 eries of Faraday were made. 



The German university system and the inde- 

 pendence and leisure which it affords German pro- 

 fessors are too well known to need sketching here. 

 It is pleasing to note that something of this same 

 spirit and of this same system is coming into 

 vogue with our American universities. Of this 

 much good may come. But there is room nay, 

 if the United States wish to hold the same position 



354 



