THE BOSE INSTITUTE 251 



the Englishman to do the finest work under conditions of 

 freedom and under the stimulus of a master mind. The 

 great work in 'science and in arts would be done not under 

 the punctual and meritorious preparation for an examina- 

 tion, under a syllabus designed by a Sanhedrin, but in 

 institutes devoted to the free investigation of some great 

 problem. Sir Jagadis Bose's name, and the name of the 

 Research Institute he founded in Calcutta, acted to thousands 

 in India as a beacon light, because science was studied for 

 the love of science, and with freedom and zeal.' 



There followed an honour from the University of Aber- 

 deen, which awarded Sir Jagadis Bose the honorary degree 

 of LL.D., in recognition of the important contributions 

 which he had made for the advance of general physiology 

 and for his investigations on the Irritability of Plants. 



Finally, in relation to this matter of formal acceptance 

 and recognition by his European peers, a word remains to 

 be said touching the most significant incident of all. The 

 honour recognised by men of science throughout the British 

 Dominions as the proudest of all is the award of the Fellow- 

 ship of the Royal Society. That is being conferred upon 

 Bose as this volume goes to press (May 1920), in recognition 

 of his contributions, not only in physics, but in physiology 

 also. It comes to him as the culmination of a series of 

 discussions and incidents spread over two decades, and at 

 the last in a collective decision which had in it something 

 of dramatic unanimity and completeness. In May 1901 

 Bose had communicated to the Royal Society his first results 

 in plant response ; and, as has been recorded in this 

 narrative, his paper was rejected. It took almost twenty 

 years for the truth to make its way completely into the 

 light twenty years of persistent and unswerving labour 

 devoted to the working out of new methods of inquiry ; the 

 victorious following out of the experiments which, questioned 

 and belittled in the first stage, have since added a marvellous 

 new province to the empire of human knowledge. What was 



