THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN ENGLAND. 239 



sides a number of separate societies, " concentration was 

 needed in one association in order to give more systematic 

 direction to scientific inquiry, and that the first thing 

 needed would be to procure reports on the state and the 

 desiderata of the several branches of science." Babbage, 

 at the Oxford meeting in 1832, "expressed the general 

 feeling that meetings should be held in places likely to 

 bring science into contact with that practical knowledge 

 on which the wealth of the country depends." There is 

 also no doubt that in the course of half a century the 

 British Association has done a very extensive service 

 to science in the direction of supplying the wants which 

 its early founders clearly defined, and in bringing about 

 that concerted action and scientific co-operation which so 

 highly distinguishes the great academies and universities of 

 France and Germany. 1 It has done so without altogether 

 destroying that peculiar feature which characterises not 10. 

 only the scientific but all the forms of the higher mental istics of 



higher men- 



work of this country. In no country has the voice of 

 public criticism been so free to unveil the shortcomings 

 which attach to all even the highest human effort. In 

 England there has existed for a long time the habit of 

 promoting advance in every department by the cultiva- 



Babbage, Henry, Barlow, South, 

 Faraday, Murdoch, and Christie ; 

 nor need we have any hesitation 

 in adding that within the last fif- 

 teen years not a single discovery or 

 invention of prominent interest has 

 been made in our colleges, and that 

 there is not one man in all the eight 

 universities of Great Britain who is 

 at present known to be engaged in 

 any train of original research" 

 ('Quarterly Review,' vol. xliii. p. 

 327, 1830). He then suggests "an 



association of our nobility, clergy, 

 gentry, and philosophers " (p. 342). 

 1 The British Association has from 

 the beginning had two features which 

 did not exist in the German so- 

 ciety first, the Reports on the 

 position of various branches of sci- 

 ence, delivered by specialists of the 

 highest ability ; and, secondly, the 

 Committees, which undertake to 

 do special work requiring concerted 

 action. 



