THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 149 



2. THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE AS MEASURED 

 BY THE SUPPORT GIVEN TO IT BY PUBLIC 

 FUNDS, AND THE RESPECT ACCORDED TO 

 SCIENTIFIC WORK BY THE BRITISH GO- 

 VERNMENT AND THE COMMUNITY AT LARGE. 



Whilst I have been able, though in a very frag- 

 mentary and incomplete way, to indicate the satisfactory 

 and, indeed, the wonderful progress of science in the 

 last quarter of a century, so far as the making of 

 new knowledge is concerned, I am sorry to say that 

 there is by no means a corresponding * advancement ' 

 of Science in that signification of the word which 

 implies the increase of the influence of science in 

 the life of the commuity, the increase of the support 

 given to it, and of the desire to aid in its progress, 

 to discover and then to encourage and reward those 

 who are specially fitted to increase scientific know- 

 ledge, and to bring it to bear so as to promote the 

 welfare of the community. 



It is, unfortunately, true that the successive political 

 administrators of the affairs of this country, as well 

 as the permanent officials, are altogether unaware to- 

 day, as they were twenty-five years ago, of the vital 

 importance of that knowledge which we call science, 

 and of the urgent need for making use of it in a 

 variety of public affairs. Whole departments of 

 Government in which scientific knowledge is the one 

 thing needful are carried on by ministers, permanent 

 secretaries, assistant secretaries and clerks who are 

 wholly ignorant of science, and naturally enough dislike 

 it since it cannot be used by them, and is in many 

 instances the condemnation of their official employment. 



