442 



NA TURE 



[September io, 1903 



brings, will not be in the best position to apply his knowledge in 

 after life. From neglect of research comes imperfect education 

 and a small output of new applications and new knowledge 

 to reinvigorate our industries. From imperfect education comes 

 the unconcern touching scientific matters, and the too frequent 

 absence of the scientific spirit, in the nation generally from the 

 Court to the parish council. 



I propose to deal as briefly as I can with each of these points. 



Universities. 



I have shown that so far as our industries are concerned, the 

 cause of our failure has been run to earth ; it is fully recognised" 

 that it arises from the insufficiency of our universities both in 

 numbers and efficiency, so that not only our captains of in- 

 dustry, hut those employed on the nation's work generally, do 

 not secure a training similar to that afforded by other nations. 

 No additional endowment of primary, secondary or technical 

 instruction will mend matters. This is not merely the opinion 

 of men of science ; our great towns know it, our Ministers 

 know it. 



It is sufficient for me to quote Mr. Chamberlain : — 



" It is not everyone who can, by any possibility, go forward 

 into the higher spheres of education ; but it is from those who 

 do that we have to look for the men who, in the future, will carry 

 high the flag of this country in commercial, scientific and 

 economic competition with other nations. At the present moment, 

 I believe there is nothing more important than to supply the 

 deficiencies which separate us from those with whom we are in 

 the closest com|)etition. In Germany, in America, in our own 

 colony of Canada and in Australia, the higher education of the 

 people has more support from the Government, is carried further, 

 than it is here in the old country ; and the result is that in 

 every ]irofession, in every industry, you find the places taken by 

 men and by women who have had a university education. And 

 I would like to see the time in this country when no man should 

 have a chance for any occupation of the better kind, either in 

 our factories, our workshops or our counting-houses, who could 

 not show proof that, in the course of his university career, he 

 had deserved the position that was offered to him. What is it 

 that makes a country? Of course you may say, and you would 

 be.quite right, ' The general qualities of the people, their reso- 

 lution, their intelligence, their pertinacity, and many other good 

 qualities.' Yes; but that is not all, and it is not the main 

 creative feature of a great nation. The greatness of a nation 

 is made by its greatest men. It is those we want to educate. 

 It is to those who are able to go, it may be, from the very lowest 

 steps in the ladder, to men who are able to devote their time to 

 higher education, that we have to look to continue the position 

 which we now occupy as, at all events, one of the greatest \ 

 nations on the face of the earth. And, feeling as I do on these i 

 subjects, you will not be surprised if I say that I think the time \ 

 s coming when Governments will give more attention to this ! 

 matter, and perhaps find a little more money to forward its i 

 interests" ( Ti'w^j-, November 6, 1902). 1 



Our conception of a university has changed. University 

 education is no longer regarded as the luxury of the rich which j 

 concerns only those who can afford to pay heavily for it. The i 

 Prime Minister in a recent speech, while properly pointing out [ 

 that the collective effect of our public and secondary schools ! 

 upon British character cannot be overrated, frankly acknow- \ 

 ledged that the boys of seventeen or eighteen who have to be \ 

 educated in them " do not care a farthing about the world they \ 

 live in except in so far as it concerns the cricket-field or the 

 football-field or the river." On this ground they are not to be 

 taught science, and hence, when they proceed to the university, 

 their curriculum is limited to subjects which were better taught 

 before the modern world existed, or even Galileo was born. 

 But the science which these young gentlemen neglect, with the 

 full approval of their teachers, on their way through the school 

 and the university to politics, the Civil Service, or the manage- 

 ment of commercial concerns, is now one of the great necessities 

 of a nation, and our universities must become as much the 

 insurers of the future progress as battleships are the insurers 

 of the present power of States. In other words, university 

 competition between States is now as potent as competition 

 in building battleships, and it is on this ground that our uni- 

 versity conditions become of the highest national concern and 

 therefore have to be referred to here, and all the more because 

 our industries are not alone in question. 



NO. 1767, VOL, 68] 



Why we have not more Universities. 

 Chief among the causes which have brought us to the terrible 

 condition of inferiority as compared with other nations in which 

 we find ourselves are our carelessness in the matter of edu- 

 cation and our false notions of the limitations of State functions 

 in relation to the conditions of modern civilisation. 



Time was when the Navy was largely a matter of private 

 and local efiort. William the Conqueror gave privileges to the 

 Cinque Ports on the condition that they furnished fifty-iwo ships 

 when wanted. In the time of Edward III., of 730 sail engaged in 

 the siege of Calais, 705 were " people's ships." All this has 

 passed away ; for our first line of defence we no longer depend on 

 private and local cfibrt. 



Time was when not a penny was spent by the State on 

 elementary education. Again, we no longer depend upon 

 private and local effort. The Navy and primary education are 

 now recognised as properly calling upon the public for the 

 necessary financial support. But when we pass from primary ta 

 university education, instead of State endowment we find State 

 neglect ; we are in a region where it is nobody's business to see 

 that anything is done. 



We in Great Britain have thirteen universities competing 

 with 134 State and privately endowed in the United States and 

 twenty-two State endo Aed in Germany. I leave other countries 

 out of consideration for lack of time, and I omit all reference to 

 higher institutions for technical training, of which Germany 

 alone possesses nine of university rank, because they are less 

 important; they instruct rather than educate, and our want is 

 education. The German State gives to one university more 

 than the British Government allows to all' the universities 

 and university colleges in England, Ireland, Scotland, and 

 Wales put together. These are the conditions which regulate 

 the production of brain-power in the United Slates, Germany, 

 and Britain respectively, and the excuse of the Government 

 is that this is a matter for private effort. Do not our Ministers 

 of State know that other civilised countries grant efficient 

 State aid, and further, that private effort has provided in Great 

 Britain less than 10 per cent, of the sum thus furnished in the 

 United States in addition to State aid ? Are they content 

 that we <;hould go under in the great struggle of the modern 

 world because the Ministries of other States are wiser, and 

 because the individual citizens of another country are more 

 generous, than our own ? 



If we grant that there was some excuse for the State's neg- 

 lect so long as the higher teaching dealt only with words, and 

 books alone had to be provided (for the streets of London and 

 Paris have been used as class rooms at a pinch), it must not be 

 forgotten that during the last hundred years not only has knowledge 

 been enormously increased, but things have replaced words, and 

 fully equipped laboratories must take the place of books and class 

 rooms if university training woithy of the name is to be pro- 

 vided. There is much more difference in size and kind between 

 an old and new university than there is between the old caravel 

 and a modern battleship, and the endowments must follow suit. 



What are the facts relating to private endowment in this 

 country? In spite of the munificence displayed by a small 

 number of individuals in some localities, the truth must be 

 spoken. In depending in our country upon this form of endow- 

 ment, we are trusting to a broken reed. If we take the twelve 

 English university colleges, the forerunners of universities unless 

 we are to perish from lack of knowledge, we find that private 

 effort during sixty years has found less than 4,000,000/., that is, 

 2,000,000/. for buildings and 40,000/. a year income. This gives 

 us an average of 166,000/. for buildings and 3300/. for yearly 

 income. 



What is the scale of private effort we have to compete with 

 in regard to the American univer.sities? 



In the United States, during the last few years, universities 

 and colleges have received more than 40,000,000/. from this 

 source alone ; private effort supplied nearly 7,000,000/. in the 

 years 1 898- 1900. 



Next consider the amount of State aid to univer.sities afforded 

 in Germany. The buildings of the new University of Strassburg 

 have already cost nearly a million ; that is, about as much as has 

 yet been found by private effort for buildings in Manchester, 

 Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol, Newcastle and Sheffield. The 

 Government annual endowment of the same German university 

 is more than 49,000/. 



This is what private endowment does for us in England, 

 against State endowment in Germany. 



