54 SCIENCE AND THE PRESS 
How long will it be, I wonder, before science comes to its 
own in the general education and the general economy of the 
nation? One would think sometimes from what people say 
that science had gained its place. Believe me, this is not the 
case. A good deal has been done; science appears in our 
curricula, and is a great deal more respectable than it was; 
but it is still quite a prevalent opinion that a man may be 
styled well-educated and not know any science at all. It 
would occasion no surprise if in the whole British Cabinet 
there were not enough science to pass one member of it through 
a matriculation examination. This would not be so bad were 
these people not impenitent. A remark was quoted to me the 
other day which I believe to be typical. It came from the 
lips of a Member of Parliament of distinguished literary position. 
He said, ‘I don’t care twopence for science; I don’t know 
why water does not run up-hill, and I don’t want to know’. 
Now, of course, the feeling behind this remark is merely that 
science is a mechanical and soulless thing, and that with all 
human history, human literature, human society, and human 
nature to study, one may well be excused from spending time 
in learning about the laws of the inanimate world. Of course 
our friend was speaking in ignorance, and his remark was 
exactly on a par with those we so often hear about the futility 
of classical studies. What does it matter to a soap-boiler or 
a surgeon who won at Marathon or Salamis? But then our 
friend was thought merely to be smart and amusing when he 
gloried in his ignorance of science, whereas if the soap-boiler 
or the surgeon had merely said Salamis instead of Salamis— 
what then? Think of the sniffings and shrugs and glances that 
poor uneducated man would have provoked. 
Now I have no sympathy whatever with a contemptuous 
attitude towards classical or literary studies. All I wish to 
say is, that until science is treated with as much respect as the 
older subjects of study, it will not have come by its rights. 
