4i8 



NA TURE 



[March i, 1900 



offence, the latter disapproving of it entirely as a normal 

 part of the curriculum. Others, again, incline to the 

 view that actual new investigation, as opposed to ordinary 

 laboratory work, is an extremely important and useful in- 

 cident in training. On the other hand, there is no trace 

 of difference of opinion as to whether or no it is not at 

 once an imperative duty and an immense practical ad- 

 vantage for a university to provide every encouragement 

 in the shape of equipment and scholarship or fellowship 

 endowment for what may be called post-graduate research. 

 In this respect the duties of a university are to be limited 

 only by her resources. 



The general result of this interesting discussion by 

 ■experts is that an atmosphere of original investigation 

 should pervade a university. Its professors must be 

 investigators if only because otherwise they cannot be 

 competent teachers. Its schools must be provided with 

 the appliances and material facilities for research, and it 

 must attach to itself by scholarships and fellowships 

 numbers of young men devoting themselves, in the 

 first place, to research ; while the conduct of original 

 investigation may be made an incident in the normal 

 training of advanced students. 



It is to be noticed that this emphatic pronouncement 

 is based directly on experience, and on experience of a 

 strictly pedagogic or university type. These experts in 

 conference had no need to raise the underlying principles 

 on which useful continuance of the existence of univer- 

 sities depends. Universities are organs of the com- 

 munity, and the pabulum that they absorb, whether it be 

 derived from hoards of the past or from the circulating 

 wealth of the present, obviously is diverted from other 

 uses. Their utility depends upon the returns they make 

 to the community. Such products consist of an output of 

 trained men and of knowledge ; these, to resume the 

 metaphor, corresponding to the direct secretion of an 

 organ, and the general diffusion of a subtle but pervading 

 influence comparable with the internal secretions dis- 

 covered by modern physiology. A university that starves 

 and discourages research turns out into the world smooth 

 and conventional graduates, blind to the surprising 

 novelties of life, more ready to meet crises, small or 

 great, with historical parallels than novel efforts ; fitter 

 to adorn success than to achieve it ; it prefers criticism 

 to knowledge, style to matter, glosses and reconciliations 

 to the disconcerting energy of new ideas ; it instils into 

 the body politic a bland and slothful miasma of self- 

 content. A university pervaded by the spirit of in- 

 vestigation sends out graduates ready to change with 

 changing conditions, to whom difficulties are opportuni- 

 ties, and who, above all, are trained to watch for the 

 inevitable changes in the most familiar ideas as new facts 

 creep into light ; it sends out the new knowledge, which 

 becomes transmuted into new practical advantages for 

 humanity, and it sends out the old knowledge not wrought 

 into artificial harmonies, but with a bold presentation 

 of the gaps and roughnesses which are the chief stimulus 

 to new discovery ; it radiates through the community the 

 alert and adaptive spirit of progress. 



It is needless to say that, like the American univer- 

 sities, the universities of the continent, and in especial 

 those of Germany, are conspicuous for the extent to 

 which they encourage research by their funds and by 

 their arrangements. The historian of the future, who is 

 to trace the vast progress made in recent years by 

 Germany in power, wealth, commerce, the arts and 

 industries, without doubt will notice the part played by 

 her many universities in this momentous change. A 

 single article in the pages of a scientific journal is not 

 a suitable vehicle for any exact examination of the 

 relative advances made by England and other countries 

 m recent times. But, until matters have been put right, 

 •every opportunity is convenient to insist that the univer- 

 sities of Britain do not encourage research sufficiently, 



NO. 1583, VOL. 61] 



and that, in particular, her richest university habitually 

 and systematically despises research in its general 

 arrangements, in the allocation of its endowments, and 

 in the distribution of its revenues. Moreover, it is 

 especially unfortunate that not only is the amount of 

 consideration given to research minute, but is diminishing. 

 A single example is more convincing than a multitude 

 of general statements, and an appropriate instance lies 

 unfortunately ready to hand in the preface to the last 

 volume of " Linacre Reports," recently issued by Prof 

 Ray Lankester. The late Linacre Professor and present 

 Keeper of the British Museum of Natural History, in a 

 preface addressed to the Vice-Chancellor of the Uni- 

 versity of Oxford, deplores the attitude of the Oxford 

 colleges to the natural sciences. " The College endow- 

 ments," he states, and every one with knowledge of the 

 matter is able to corroborate, "are now more largely 

 than ever employed in maintaining a tutorial system, which 

 is in itself of small value— if not positively injurious — 

 and necessarily in complete antagonism to the develop- 

 ment of the method of study, and to the wide range of 

 subjects studied, which distinguish everywhere but in 

 Oxford the University from the Preparatory School." 

 Prof Lankester believes that the natural sciences, the 

 subjects particularly associated with research as a means 

 of training and as a source of directive knowledge, 

 should be supported by not less than two-thirds of the 

 endowments at the disposal of these colleges. Oxford, 

 no doubt, is an extreme example of the general failure of 

 British universities to respond adequately to what 

 everywhere but in England is regarded as the first duty 

 of a university ; but there is urgent need for inquiry 

 into and redress of the conditions which have brought 

 about the present state of affairs, and those institutions 

 which have taken a larger view of their duties will be the 

 first to approve a strong statement of the existing 

 failure. 



BRITISH DRAGONFLIESy 



MR. LUCAS is favourably known to entomologists by 

 previous works on British Butterflies and British 

 Hawk-moths ; but in the present work he has broken new 

 ground, and gives us a complete and trustworthy account 

 of our British Dragonflies, the study of which has pre- 

 viously been much neglected in England. 



Dragonflies resemble butterflies in being among the 

 largest and most conspicuous of day-flying insects ; but 

 they are far less numerous in species, for while there are 

 300 butterflies in Europe in round numbers, out of which 

 from 60 to 70 inhabit the British Islands, the Dragon- 

 flies of Europe barely exceed loo, of which, however, 

 40 are admitted by Mr. Lucas as British, a consider- 

 ably larger proportion than in the Butterflies. It is 

 curious, however, that among seven additional species, 

 properly excluded by Mr. Lucas as not truly indigenous, 

 is Pantala Jlavescens, Fabricius, said to have been taken 

 years ago by Sparshall in the Fens. This is an abundant 

 species in nearly all parts of the world (Asia, Africa, 

 Oceania and America), but with the single exception 

 above-mentioned, it has never been noticed as occurring 

 in any part of Europe. 



One advantage of dealing with a limited subject is that 

 it permits of its being treated with sufficient fulness for 

 most practical purposes, in a sufficiently portable form. 



While not neglecting the literature of his subject, a 

 large portion of the present volume is based on Mr. 

 Lucas's own personal observations, which imparts much 

 greater value to the whole of his work ; for although 

 every author must be more or less dependent on the ob- 

 servations of others as well as on his own, yet he is not 



1" British Dragonflies" (Odonata). By W. J. Lucas, B.A., F.E.S. 

 Illustrated with 27 Coloured Plates and 57 Black and White Engravings. 

 Pp. xiv -f- 356. (London : L. Upcott Gill, 1900.) 



