29G 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Sept. 29, 1882, 



advantages which the influences of scientific method should 

 aflbrd to our Mlucational system will be amply repaid by 

 the increased number and elliciency of those who will 

 hereafter be able to take part in scientiiic work and an 

 intelligent and practical interest in its progress. The 

 educational uses of scientiiic teaching have yet to be fully 

 consideretl, and we might reap them by the endowment of 

 one or more professorships, round which the experiences 

 of many who are interested in this important branch of 

 the subject might concentrate, alike to the advantage 

 of " liberal " culture and of more special training for the 

 labours of researcL As to the endowment of the more 

 special forms of research as more commonly understood, 

 there is hardly any limit which it is desirable to assign to 



it, provided due assuranc 



en tliat the work desir 



efficiently carried out Tiie services thus rendered are pre- 

 eminently of general and national importance, and must 

 be provided for by national expenditure. The economic 

 doctrine of supply and demand as regards the interchange 

 of individual services is wliolly inapplicable to the question. 

 The difficulty lies in the aduiinistration of the funds de- 

 voted to such purposes, so as to insure that they are given 

 to those duly iiiialided to use them. The method of State 

 grants in aid, dispensed through tlie agency of existing 

 societies and learned bodies who have earned a title to 

 public confidence, might be largely developed with the 

 greatest advantage, and the relative functions of the 

 Government and of such societies m their relation to this 

 subject were discussed. The multiplication of " idle 

 fellowships " had a demoralising tendency. While any 

 undue interference on the part of the central adminis- 

 tration was to be altogether deprecated, it was essential 

 to reserve to the State an ultimate and quasi judicial 

 control, which would best secure that publicity and definite 

 responsibility which are the best safeguards against abuses 

 in any direction. 



Mr. Cooke Taylor, who opened the discussion, said this 

 was an age of investigations. He was not much in favour 

 of the endowment of research, but if they were to have it, 

 it should l>e upon the lines laid down by Lord Bacon in his 

 " New Atlantis." 



The Rev. J. F. M'Callan, one of the local secretaries, 

 beliered that discovery was promoted not by endowment, 

 but by enthusiasm. In his opinion, the endowment of 

 research would be merely making a perch for acti\e men 

 to go to sleep upon, and would not promote investiga- 

 tion in any special way. 



The Rev. J. Bevan thought a good deal might be done 

 by private enterprise. 



Mr. Walter Wren (London) said that rewards ought to 

 be given for something done, and not payment for some- 

 thing to l>e done. He regarded this agitation for the 

 endowment of researcii as a new form of alms-begging 

 or charity-hunting. J»y endowments they would be 

 simply op*;ning the door to jobbery on a most gigantic 

 scale. 



After some further discussion, 



Mr. Hamilton repli<rd. He said he entirely agreed with 

 Mr. M'Callan and Mr. Wren with regard to what was 

 called the abuse of the endowment of research. I5y the 

 endow-ment he simply meant that those who were engaged 

 in research should, upon due proof that they were so 

 engag»fd, \ji: exempt from carking cares and dillioulties. 

 People could not live upon nothing, and there was no doubt 

 that at pri-jv,nt any ol<iect of research must be investigated 

 by people of indefwndent means. He thought it would l)e 

 well that m<»n9 should be provided so that those engaged 

 in research might obtain assistance without feeling under 

 a personal obligation to anyone. 



^(bictusf. 



A SCHOOL BOOK ON HEAT.* 



IT is singular how few of those who are not actually 

 students of physics have any clear idea of the nature 

 of heat, the laws of its recejition, transmission, and radia- 

 tion. The most absurd mistakes are made on these 

 subjects wlien any simple phenomenon of heat is familiarly 

 discussed. As the phenomena of heat are the most 

 common of all those which ordinary life brings into our 

 notice, they might well be studied in our schools, instead 

 of some of those preposterous subjects which the folly of 

 the fifteenth century set as the chief matters for school- 

 training, and the stupidity of the nineteenth persists in 

 retaining. If the wiser of the earlier period had selected 

 subjects for study, or if the more sensible of our own day 

 had their way, our children would not be obliged to learn a 

 number of matters of no earthly use to most of them while 

 subjects which actually include the very laws of their exist- 

 ence are utterly neglected. A bright boy of fourteen shall re- 

 peat for you glibly, in Latin, the rules of Greek syntax or 

 prosody, and translate a page of some more or less olfensive 

 poetry about the loves of gods and goddesses ; and when he 

 is forty he will positively remember enough of his classical 

 lore to know the origin of most of those English words 

 which have been derived from Latin or Greek (which know- 

 ledge might all have been obtained in the compass of a 

 week at the outsi<le). But ask him how exercise makes 

 him warm 1 why llaiinel is good for his cricket suit on a 

 hot summer's day, and also for his football suit in winter? 

 why his breath forms a visible cloud on a cold day and not 

 on a hot one ? or any simple rjuestion of this sort, and the 

 chances are (even now, when physical science is supposed 

 to be taught in our schools) that he will be all at sea. 



Among the adult, ignorance about the laws of heat is 

 still more common and still mor.j surprising. For a boy 

 cannot be expected to learn what no one cares to teach 

 him ; and if he finds that he cannot gain credit and jjrizes 

 without being able to write Latin verses or to show that 

 triangles are to each other in the duplicate ratio of their 

 homologous sides, ho will give all his studying time to these 

 things, just as he would give it to the study of chess or 

 whist if proficiency in these pursuits were made (as it might 

 as wisely be) the test of progress. But that persons who 

 have leisure for study should remain absolutely ignorant of 

 such subjects as the laws of heat, light, and so forth, laws 

 relating to phenomena constantly occurring, is less easily 

 explained, unless it be regarded as the result of a carefully 

 instilled feeling of disregard for all that takes place around 

 them. 



Yet our own experience shows us that many who ob- 

 viously know little would like to know a great deal about 

 such matters. We receive multitudes of letters showing 

 that though the writers may not know the ditl'erence 

 between conduction and convection, or may regard specific 

 heat as some special kind of heat (like obscure heat, for 

 instance), while the mechanical theory of heat is obscurer 

 to them than a half-obliterated manuscript in Goojurattce 

 Indian, they are very anxious to learn what science has to 

 say on these subjects. 



To all such we very strongly recommend Mr. Larden's ex- 

 cellent book on Heat.' It is intended as a text-book for 

 use in our public schools ; but (while admirably suited for 

 that purpose) it should be read by all who wish to have 



• A School Courte on Heal. Uy W. Laiidex, M.A., Assistant- 

 Master in Cheltenham College. (Sampson Low, Marston, & Co., 

 London.) 



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