338 



NATURE 



[August 13, 1903 



■clear, and to this part of the inquiry Prof. Ewing con- 

 tributed a most important statement as to the 

 ■educational value of research as demonstrated by his 

 experience at Cambridge. We may hope that at leaft 

 after thirty years' debate this matter can be considered 

 settled. In the language of our correspondent, " Since 

 Germany has given to our -disadvantage a definite 

 experimental proof of the success of research as an 

 instrument of education, the delegates probably felt 

 that the matter had gone beyond the range of academic 

 . discussion." 



When once this idea of the proper function of uni- 

 versities is re-established and in full operation, not only 

 at Oxford and Cambridge, but in many other British 

 universities, it may happen that not everybody will 

 agree with Mr. Balfour's comparisons between the old 

 and the new seats of learning. 



" I daresay that many of us have looked back with 

 a certain regret, and a certain feeling of shame, to the 

 medieval passion for learning without fee and without 

 reward — with no desire to make the universities 

 stepping-stones to good places or to successful mercan- 

 tile or industrial undertakings — but with an ideal 

 which made thousands of students from every country 

 In Europe undergo hardships which would be regarded 

 in these softer days as absolutely intolerable, for the 

 sole purpose of seeking, and it might be finding, the 

 great secret of knowledge. We despise, and we 

 perhaps rightly despise, their methods. We know that 

 they were not in touch with the actual realities of the 

 world in which they lived. Yet, after all, we have 

 something to learn from them ; and if we in these days 

 could imitate their disinterested passion for knowing 

 and for extending the bounds of knowledge, surely we, 

 with our better methods, and our clearer appreciation 

 ■of what we can know and what we cannot know, 

 might accomplish things as yet undreamed of. Now, 

 what did they do? They moved from university to 

 university, from Oxford to Paris, from Paris to Padua, 

 from country to country, in order that they might sit 

 at the feet of some great master of learning, some 

 great teacher who might lead their thoughts into un- 

 dreamed of paths. I hope that in the universities of 

 the future every great teacher will attract to himself 

 from other universities students who may catch his 

 spirit — young men who may be guided by him in the 

 paths of scientific fame ; men who may come to him 

 from north or from south." 



We agree as to the facts as to the past, but it is 

 not the carelessness and greed of the modern 

 student that are in question, but rather the decadence 

 of our universities, which are no longer seats of learn- 

 ing in the old sense, that is, they do not supply the 

 knowledge most useful to those who attend them in 

 relation to the needs of the time. They are chiefly 

 conducted as playgrounds for the sons of the rich, learn- 

 ing is too little endowed, and great teachers are too 

 little encouraged, especially in the matters in which 

 the modern world is concerned. 



If only students of science found at our universities 

 of to-day what students of theology, law, medicine, 

 and les trois langues, found in the old time at all 

 universities, that is, perfect teaching, and the endow- 

 ment of research at the university itself, things might 

 be righted, and, as of old, many fitted for the battle 

 of life would go out into the world to apply their know- 

 ledge as did their forerunners, and show neither more 

 NO. 1763, VOL. 68] 



nor less " disinterested passion " than the well paid 

 ecclesiastics, lawyers, and doctors of the past. 



It is because the universities of Germany, France, 

 and the United States, aided by wisdom and endow- 

 ments, conform to the old ideal, while our ancient ones 

 remain as hauts lycies, as Matthew Arnold called them, 

 and our modern ones are crippled for want of funds, 

 that the students of both Britain and Greater Britain 

 find an advantage in going abroad to build up their 

 brain power. 



It is to be hoped that as a result of the conference 

 the educational federation of the Empire will some day 

 be brought about. It must not be forgotten that the 

 first step in this direction was taken when the Royal 

 Commissioners for the Exhibition of 185 1 founded its 

 research scholarships, in which every university in the 

 Empire has a share — a share which it has fully used, 

 and with the best effects. That other similar scholar- 

 ships should be founded by the different Governments 

 and private individuals may be one of the results of 

 the conference. 



Our plea for better brain power for the nation was 

 not lost sight of in the deliberations, and we may fitly 

 conclude by the following quotation from a speech by 

 Mr. Haldane, which brought the discussion to a close. 



" To-day we are a step further on towards doing that 

 which, as a people, as the great English-speaking 

 people, we need more than anything else. We have 

 got the splendid energy of our race, we have got the 

 power which is ours, in a unique degree, of adapting 

 ourselves to new conditions, of overcoming difficulties 

 which to others might even seem to be insurmountable, 

 and yet we have been deficient in the capacity of organ- 

 isation. What we have lacked in this country, some- 

 how, has been the thinking faculty, and it is the work 

 of education to develop the thinking faculty in a nation. 

 And never before was the thinking faculty so much 

 needed as to-day when the weapons which science places 

 in the hands of those who engage in great rivalries of 

 commerce leave those who are without them, however 

 brave, as badly off as were the dervishes of Omdurman 

 against the Maxims of Lord Kitchener." 



THE SPECTROSCOPE IN ASTRONOMY. 

 Problems in Astrophysics. By Agnes M. Clerke 

 Pp. xvi + 567. (London: A. and C. Black, 1903.) 

 Price 20S. net. 



THE triple alliance of astronomy, phj^sics and 

 chemistry has extended the boundaries of each 

 in unexpected directions. Astronomy is no longer a 

 dependency of mathematics, but an independent power 

 having a high place in the hierarchy of the physical 

 sciences ; instruments of research in physics have been 

 turned from earth to sky, and chemistry now looks to 

 the stars for evidence as to the distribution and 

 ultimate structure of the elements. 



The spectroscope is the chief means by which these 

 new territories have been gained for science and ex- 

 plored, and the photographic plate has not only been 

 its faithful scribe, but has also gained distinction as 

 an astronomical artist. Individually and jointly, the 

 prism and the camera have increased our knowledge 

 of the nature and number of all classes of celestial 



