250 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE 



Within a month, therefore, of his arrival in London 

 Bose had overflowing evidence of the most eager and wide- 

 spread interest in his work and its significance for the 

 world. As regards his fellow-investigators and the educated 

 public in general, this interest is not to be wondered at. 

 The years of the war, the years since his last visit to England, 

 have been a period of unexampled mental upheaval and, 

 in the sphere of applied science, of experiment and achieve- 

 ment surpassing everything hitherto known. With this 

 there has come an intense stimulus to all inquiry and 

 discussion relating to the mysterious activities of life, and 

 more particularly to the phenomena in the borderland 

 between the animate and the so-called inanimate. In that 

 curiosity to-day the average person shares as never before. 



As regards the interest of the leaders in thought and 

 scientific inquiry, Bose has fully secured it in recent years. 

 When, before the war, he set up a temporary laboratory in 

 Maida Vale, he was continually called upon by men 

 distinguished in many walks of life. During the spring of 

 1920 his laboratory in Bloomsbury Square was visited by 

 almost all the leading men of science. He was invited 

 by both the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and 

 gave his addresses and demonstrations before highly 

 appreciative audiences. The Vice-Chancellor of Leeds 

 University sent him a most cordial invitation to lecture. 

 In offering him the welcome of the University, Sir Michael 

 Sadler, who had recently been in India as Chairman of the 

 Commission for the Reform of Calcutta University, spoke 

 with the authority of personal knowledge of Bose's work in 

 India as University teacher as well as original investigator. 

 ' India/ he said, ' needed more science in her secondary 

 and higher education, and needed to be delivered from 

 the tyranny of excessive examinations. When he and his 

 colleagues were inquiring into the educational work in the 

 Presidency of Bengal, he realised more vividly than before 

 what Sir Jagadis's work meant not only to Bengal but to 

 India. It was the genius of the Indian and the genius of 



