58 SCIENCE AND THE PRESS 
paragraph, except the last part, which is quite wrong. The 
last paragraph is—well, perhaps it does not matter. 
Now, when I looked this morning at my paper I felt that 
there must have been some conspiracy to take away any justi- 
fication for the remarks I was going to make this evening, for 
there, in the honourable position of a leading article, was an 
admirable and interesting discussion of what had actually been 
discovered about Polonium, and what the paragraph I have just 
quoted had made such an unsuccessful attempt to announce. 
The article was evidently written by someone who was well 
versed in the subject. -Isay Ilook upon this phenomenon as 
the result either of a conspiracy or some strange accident. 
I do not wish at all to overstate my case, and I should like 
to make full acknowledgement of signs of improvement which 
are apparent. In recent years The Times has begun to 
publish a weekly Engineering Supplement which is seriously 
and admirably scientific. The Manchester Guardian also 
has frequent articles on the industrial application of science 
which are authoritative. The lamented TZyrzbune had a 
weekly scientific causerie written in excellent style by a distin- 
euished physicist. I might give illustrations also from nearer 
home—as, indeed, I have with some penitence just done. Lately 
I had a communication from another great London daily fore- 
shadowing a determined attempt to do more justice to science. 
Now I am afraid you may think that I am adopting a some- 
what censorious and ungracious attitude, and that you are 
being lectured to, I maysay lectured at, more than you bargained 
for. I will not longer delay giving you my reasons for speaking 
as I have done. The fact is, my desire that the Press should 
take a warmer interest in science comes from my sense of the 
tremendous power for good or ill that rests in the hands of 
1 In the eleven years since this was written there has been little improve- 
ment. Equally absurd examples are available from this week’s press— 
January 1921. . 
