September io, 1903] 



NATURE 



445 



Research. 



When dealing with our universities, I referred to the import- 

 ance of research, as it is now generally acknowledged to be the 

 most powerful engine of education that we possess. But educa- 

 tion alter all is but a means to the end which, from the national 

 point of view, is the application of old and the production of new 

 knowledge. 



Its national importance apart from education is now so 

 generally recognised that in all civilised nations except our 

 own means of research are being daily more amply, provided for 

 all students after they have passed through their university 

 career, and more than this, for all who can increase the country's 

 renown or prosperity by the making of new knowledge upon 

 which not only commercial progress, but all intellectual advance 

 must depend. 



I am so anxious that my statement of our pressing, and indeed 

 imperative, needs in this direction should not be considered as 

 resting upon the possibly interested opinion of a student 

 of science merely, that I must trouble you with still more 

 quotations. 



Listen to Mr. Balfour : — 



" I do not believe that any man who looks round the equip- 

 ment of our universities or medical schools, or other places of 

 education, can honestly say in his heart that we have done 

 enough to equip research with all the costly armoury which 

 research must have in these modern days. We, the richest 

 country in the world, lag behind Germany, France, Switzerland 

 and Italy. Is it not disgraceful ? Are we too poor or are we 

 too stupid ?"i 



It is imagined by many who have given no thought to the 

 matter that this research should be closely allied with some 

 application of science being utilised at the time. Nothing 

 could be further from the truth ; nothing could be more unwise 

 than such a limitation. 



Surely all the laws of Nature will be ultimately of service, 

 and therefore there is much more future help to be got from a 

 study of the unknown and the unused than we can hope to 

 obtain by continuing the study of that which is pretty well 

 known and utilised already. It was a King of France, 

 Louis XIV., who first commended the study of the mcme 

 inutile. The history of modern science shows us more and 

 more as the years roll on the necessity and advantage of such 

 studies, and therefore the importance of properly endowing 

 them, for the production of new knowledge is a costly and un- 

 remunerative pursuit. 



Vears ago we had Faraday apparently wasting his energies 

 and time in playing with needles; electricity now fills the 

 world. To-day men of science in all lands are studying the 

 emanations of radium ; no research could be more abstract ; 

 but who knows what advance in human thought may follow or 

 what gigantic world-transforming superstructure may eventually 

 be raised on the minute foundation they are laying ? 



If we so organise our teaching forces that we can use them 

 at all stages from the gutter to the university to sift out for 

 us potential Faradays— to utilise the mental products which 

 otherwise would be wasted— it is only by enabling such men to 

 continue their learning after their teaching is over that we shall 

 be able to secure the greatest advantage which any educational 

 system can afford. 



It is now more than thirty years ago that my attention was 

 specially drawn to this question of the endowment of research, 

 first by conversations with M. Dumas, the permanent secretary 

 ofthe Academy of Sciences, who honoured me by his friendship, 

 and secondly by my association with Sir Benjamin Brodie and 

 Dr. Appleton in their endeavours to call attention to the matter in 

 this country. At that lime a general scheme of endowment sug- 

 gested by Dumas was being carried out by Duruy. This took the 

 form of the " Ecole speciale des Hautes Etudes" ; it was what 

 our fellowship system was meant to be— an endowment of the 

 research of post-graduate students in each seat of learning. The 

 French effort did not begin then. 



I may here tell, as it was told me by Dumas, the story 

 of Leon Foucault, whose many discoveries shed a glory on 

 France, and revived French industry in many directions.^ In 

 1851, when Prince Napoleon was President of the Republic, 

 he sent for Dumas and some of his colleagues and told them 

 that during his stay in England, and afterwards in his study 

 of the Great Exhibition of ihat year, he had found there a 



' Nature, May 30, 1901 



'■' See Froc. R.S. vol. xvii., p. Ixxxiii. 



NO. 1767, VOL. 68] 



greater industrial development than in France, and more 

 applications of science, adding that he wished to know how 

 such a state of things could be at once remedied. The answer 

 was that new applications depended upon new knowledge, 

 and that therefore the most direct and immediate way was to 

 find and encourage men who were likely by research in pure 

 science to produce this new knowledge. The Prince President 

 at once asked for names ; that of Leon Foucault was the only 

 one mentioned during the first interview. 



Some time afterwards, to be exact at about 1 1 in the morning 

 of December 2, Dumas's servant informed him that there was a 

 gentleman in the hall named Foucault who wished to see him, 

 and he added that he appeared to be very ill. When shown 

 into the study, Foucault was too agitated to speak, and was blind 

 with tears. His reply to Dumas's soothing questions was to 

 take from his pockets two rolls of bank notes amounting to 

 200,000 francs and place them on the table. Finally, he was 

 able to say that he had been with the Prince President since 

 8 o'clock that morning discussing the possible improvement of 

 French science and industry, and that Napoleon had finally 

 given him the money requesting him to do all in his power to 

 aid the State. Foucault ended by saying that on realising the 

 greatness of the task thus imposed upon him, his fears and 

 feelings had got the better of him, for the responsibility seemed 

 more than he could bear.^ 



The movement in England to which I have referred began in 

 1872, when a society for the organisation of academical study 

 was formed in connection with the inquiry into the revenues of 

 Oxford and Cambridge, and there was a famous meeting at 

 the Freemasons' Tavern, Mark Pattison being in the chair. 

 Brodie, Rolleston, Carpenter, Burdon-Sanderson, were among 

 the speakers, and the first resolution carried was, " That to have 

 a class of men whose lives are devoted to research is a national 

 object." The movement died in consequence of the want of 

 sympathy of the university authorities. ^ 



In the year 1874 the subject was inquired into by the late Duke 

 of Devonshire's Commission, and after taking much remarkable 

 evidence, including that of Lord Salisbury, the Commission 

 recommended to the Government that the then grant of 1000/. 

 which was expended, by a committee appointed by the Royal 

 Society, ori instruments needed in researches carried on by 

 private individuals should be increased, so that personal grants 

 should be made. This recommendation was accepted and acted 

 on ; the grant was increased to 4000/. , and finally other societies 

 were associated with the Royal Society in its administration. 

 The committee, however, was timorous, possibly owing to the 

 apathy of the universities and the general carelessness on such 

 matters, and only one personal grant was made ; the whole 

 conception fell through. 



Meantime, however, opinion has become more educated and 

 alive to the extreme importance of research to the nation, and 

 in 1891 a suggestion was made to the Royal Commission which 

 administers the proceeds of the 1851 Exhibition that a sum of 

 about 6000/. a year available for scholarships should be em- 

 ployed in encouraging post-graduate research throughout the 

 whole Empire. As what happened is told in the Memoirs of 

 Lord Playfair, it is not indiscreet in me to state that when I 

 proposed this new form of I he endowment of research, 

 it would not have surprised me if the suggestion had been 

 declined. It was carried through by Lord Playfair's enthu- 

 siastic support. This system has been at work ever since, and 

 the good that has been done by it is now generally conceded. 



It is a supreme satisfaction to me to know that m this present 

 year of grace the national importance of the study of the menie 

 inutile is more generally recognised than it was during the times 

 to which I have referred in my brief survey, and, indeed, we 

 students are fortunate in having on our side in this matter two 

 members of His Majesty's Government, who two years aga 

 spoke with no uncertain sound upon this matter. 



•' Do we lack the imagination required to show what these 

 apparently remote and abstract studies do for the happiness of 

 mankind ? We can appreciate that which obviously and 

 directly ministers to human advancement and felicity, but seem, 



1 In order to show flow fiistory i-i written, what actiuiUy happened on 

 a fateful morning may be compared with the account given by King- 

 lake :— " Prince Louis rode home and went in out of sight. Then for the 

 most part he remained close shut up in the Elysee. There, in an inner 

 room, still decked in red trousers, but with his back to the daylight, the^ 

 say he sat bent over a fireplace for hours and hours together, resting his 

 elbows on his knees, and burying his (ace in his hands "i" Crimean War," 

 i. p. 245). 



'■' See Nature, November and December, 1872. 



