II.] UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 55 



and country. I mean the proper support and en- 

 couragement of original research. 



The other day, an emphatic friend of mine com- 

 mitted himself to the opinion that, in England, it is 

 better for a man's worldly prospects to be a drunkard, 

 than to be smitten with the divine dipsomania of the 

 original investigator. I am inclined to think he was 

 not far wrong. And, be it observed, that the ques- 

 tion is not, whether such a man shall be able to make 

 as much out of his abilities as his brother, of like 

 ability, who goes into Law, or Engineering, or Com- 

 merce; it is not a question of "maintaining a due 

 number of saddle horses," as George Eliot somewhere 

 puts it it is a question of living or starving. 



If a student of my own subject shows power and 

 originality, I dare not advise him to adopt a scientific 

 career ; for, supposing he is able to maintain himself 

 until he has attained distinction, I cannot give him 

 the assurance that any amount of proficiency in the 

 Biological Sciences will be convertible into, even the 

 most modest, bread and cheese. And I believe that 

 the case is as bad, or perhaps worse, with other 

 branches of Science. In this respect Britain, whose 

 immense wealth and prosperity hang upon the thread 

 of Applied Science, is far behind France, and infin- 

 itely behind Germany. 



And the worst of it is, that it is very difficult to 

 see one's way to any immediate remedy for this state 

 of affairs which shall be free from a tendency to become 

 worse than the disease. 



Great schemes for the Endowment of Kesearch 



