222 THE ASSOCIATION 





scientific purposes, nevertheless ' it would be un- 

 fair not to remark . . . that the Government has 

 already taken very important steps in the right 

 direction, and has supplied very pressing wants by 

 the establishment of the Department of Practical 

 Geology, and of the Marine Department of the Board 

 of Trade, and its office for the discussion of nautical 

 and meteorological data. Much yet remains to be 

 done ; but these and other acts . . . such in par- 

 ticular as the 1000 grant to the Royal Society [the 

 annual Government grant which had recently been 

 accorded] are an earnest that a disposition is not 

 wanting c ' to lend science a helping hand. ' ' As regards 

 the Board of Science and other proposals, however, 

 the Council, in a comment on the Committee's report, 

 showed itself understanding of the times : ' other 

 suggestions of the Parliamentary Committee such 

 as those touching the support by the State of lectures 

 on science in the provincial towns, touching the 

 question of rewards to be given in various shapes 

 to the cultivators of science, and more especially 

 that of the creation of a Board of Science . . . have 

 yet to receive . . . sanction from public opinion; 

 and more especially from the opinion of men of 

 science themselves.' Sixty years were to pass before 

 the establishment of the Committee of the Privy 

 Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, and 

 the separate department of the Government attached 

 to it. And other suggestions of the Parliamentary 

 Committee, in the report under notice, are still not 

 beyond the stage of periodical discussion with 

 intervals of quiescence. 



1856-57. The general subject of the report 

 outlined above, however, was pursued by the Royal 



