ADDRESS ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 147 



dent. This subject of the encouragement, or, as it is some- 

 times called, the endowment of research, has of late years 

 greatly exercised the minds of men in England. It was one 

 of the main topics of discussion by the members of the 

 Royal Commission of whom I was one, and who not long 

 since issued their report, after five years' labour. Many 

 seem to think that this question is mainly one of money; 

 that you can go into the market and buy research, and that 

 supply will follow demand, as in the ordinary course of 

 commerce. This view does not commend itself to my mind. 

 I know of no more difficult practical problem than the dis- 

 covery of a method of encouraging and supporting the 

 original investigator without opening the door to nepotism 

 and jobbery. My own conviction is admirably summed 

 up in the passage of your president's address, "that the 

 best investigators are usually those who have also the 

 responsibilities of instruction, gaining thus the incitement 

 of colleagues, the encouragement of pupils, and the obser- 

 vation of the public." 



At the commencement of this address I ventured to 

 assume that I might, if I thought fit, criticise the arrange- 

 ments which have been made by the board of trustees, but 

 I confess that I have little to do but to applaud them. Most 

 wise and sagacious seems to me the determination not to 

 build for the present. It has been my fate to see great 

 educational funds fossilise into mere bricks and mortar, in 

 the petrifying springs of architecture, with nothing left to 

 work the institution they were intended to support. A great 

 warrior is said to have made a desert and called it peace. 

 Administrators of educational funds have sometimes made 

 a palace and called it a university. If I may venture to 

 give advice in a matter which lies out of my proper com- 

 petency, I would say that whenever you do build, get an 



