II.] UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 57 



endowed larvae are always tending to enlarge, and 

 their food to improve, until we get queens, beautiful 

 to behold, but which gather no honey and build no 

 comb. 



I do not say that these difficulties may not be 

 overcome, but their gravity is not to be lightly esti- 

 mated. 



In the meanwhile, there is one step in the direction 

 of the endowment of research which is free from such 

 objections. It is possible to place the scientific 

 inquirer in a position in which he shall have ample 

 leisure and opportunity for original work, and yet 

 shall give a fair and tangible equivalent for those 

 privileges. The establishment of a Faculty of Science 

 in every University, implies that of a corresponding 

 number of Professorial chairs, the incumbents of 

 which need not be so burdened with teaching as to 

 deprive them of ample leisure for original work. I 

 do not think that it is any impediment to an original 

 investigator to have to devote a moderate portion 

 of his time to lecturing, or superintending practical 

 instruction. On the contrary, I think it may be, and 

 often is, a benefit to be obliged to take a comprehen- 

 sive survey of your subject ; or to bring your results 

 to a point, and give them, as it were, a tangible 

 objective existence. The besetting sins of the investi- 

 gator are two : the one is the desire to put aside a 

 subject, the general bearings of which he has mastered 

 himself, and pass on to something which has the 

 attraction of novelty; and the other, the desire for 

 too much perfection, which leads him to 



