40 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAQADIS C. BOSE 



the University of London conferred on him its Doctorate of 

 Science without examination. Lord Kelvin wrote to him in 

 1896 that he was ' literally filled with wonder and admiration : 

 allow me to ask you to accept my congratulations for so much 

 success in the difficult and novel experimental problems 

 which you have attacked.' M. Cornu, the former President 

 of the French Academy of Sciences, and a veteran leader 

 in this field of physics, also wrote him early in 1897, saying 

 that ' the very first results of your researches testify to your 

 power of furthering the progress of science. For my own 

 part, I hope to take full advantage of the perfection to which 

 you have brought your apparatus, for the benefit of the 

 Ecole Polytechnique and for the sake of further researches 

 I wish to complete/ 



Scientific success had come unexpectedly to him : how 

 was he to accept it ? -Not in a .spirrt^pf mere personal 

 gratification : but as_encouragement to jncessant work, 

 which shoukLwin for hiscolnTtrvmenrrecognition of their 

 capacity for science, and -stir -them to like effectiveness^ 

 The dream of establishing an Institute of Science came to 

 him at this time, with its hope that others might by it be 

 saved from the harassing difficulties that had so long con- 

 fronted him. But he was too proud to ask help towards 

 realising his vision, which appeared to others as a mere dream. 

 What could be done must be done by himself, and at his 

 own risk. He and his wife therefore once more accepted 

 the continuance of their life of economy, almost of privation, 

 so that he might some day be able to help on the needed 

 modern revival of the ancient scientific tradition of India. 

 From these days, and for the next quarter of a century, 

 that has been the goal on which his mind has been con- 

 centrated ; and the many papers and books he has produced 

 are best understood as steps towards the creation of the 

 Research Institute he has at last fully initiated. 



A word now of the conditions under which research 

 had to be carried out. The feeling of the Education Depart- 

 ment had long been unfavourable ; the two friends he had 



