Eugenics as a Creed awl the Last Decade of Galton's Life 331 



T think Galton's opinion of the falling off in style of scientific, especially 

 R.S., memoirs was very well founded. He possibly did not realise some of the 

 factors that had contributed to it. In the early history of the Royal Society 

 the responsibility for the issue of papers seems to have rested with the Secretary 

 (or Secretaries), and, I think, some of the feeling of this responsibility for 

 editing lasted up to the days of Sir George G. Stokes, who must have spent 

 endless time and energy over the verbal and critical emendation of authors' 

 papers. Failing this editorial work much must depend on the printers' 

 readers. My own — now fairly considerable — experience suggests that it is 

 only at the University Presses of Cambridge and Oxford that one can be 

 certain of the highest efficiency not only in proof-reading and suggestion, 

 but in ensuring that corrections are properly made. The glory of a press de- 

 pends as much on the general culture of its readers as on the beauty of its 

 type. A second factor which I believe has largely escaped notice lies in the 

 change of the class from which the writers of papers are now drawn. With 

 the system of education as now developed the majority of men of science are 

 springing from humbler and less cultured homes than formerly. Many of 

 them have never passed through the literary training of public school and 

 university, but have been " educated " in secondary schools and science 

 laboratories, and have only exceptionally an appreciation of style, or any 

 power of lucid expression. Add to this, and anyone who examines statis- 

 tically the recent list of the fellows of the Royal Society will confirm the 

 statement, the men of leisure and culture who occupy themselves with 

 science, while formerly numerous, are now a vanishing minority; thus we see 

 how it is that the hurriedly written papers of the modern professional 

 scientists lack the lucidity of expression, sometimes the grammatical English, 

 of the more leisurely savants of the middle of last century. Galton was 

 keenly alive to the result, if possibly he had not studied fully the causes 

 of the change. I think that Sir Archibald Geikie in the discussion which 

 followed Galton's paper at the Royal Society of Literature came nearer to 

 pointing out the inevitable evolution which has taken place in the scientific 

 world. He said : 



" It seems to me that no candid reader can compare the scientific memoirs published at the 

 present day with those which appeared a hundred years ago without coming to the conclusion 

 that in average literary quality the modern writings stand decidedly on a lower level than 

 their predecessors, and that the deterioration in this respect is on the increase. The earlier 

 papers were for the most part conceived in a broader spirit, arranged more logically, and 

 expressed in a better style than those of to-day. They show their authors to have been generally 

 men of culture, who would have shrunk with horror from the slipshod language now so prevalent. 



" If it be asked what reason can be assigned for this change, various causes may be suggested. 

 In former days, the number of men of science was comparatively small, and they belonged in 

 no small measure to the leisured classes of the community. They were not constantly haunted 

 by the fear of losing their claims to priority of discovery, if they did not at once publish what 

 they had discovered. They were content to wait, sometimes for years, before committing their 

 papers to the press. And no doubt the printing of their papers was likewise a leisurely process, 



3 during which opportunity was afforded for correction and improvement. But this quiet, old- 

 fashioned procedure has been hustled out of existence by the more impatient habits and 

 requirements of the present day. The struggle for priority is almost as keen as the struggle 

 for existence." (Trans. R. Soc. of Lit. Vol. xxvni, Part II, p. 10.) 



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