History of the Government Grant. 161 



Member of the Committee be entertained." At the next meeting it 

 was reported that two Members of the Government Fund Committee 

 had resigned their seats, as they intended to make applications ; and 

 that as one of them was an ex-officio Member, the Education Depart- 

 ment had been consulted as to the manner in which the Lords of the 

 Committee of Council on Education would wish the place of a 

 Member ex officio who resigned to be supplied. 



The Secretary of the Department, in reply, while indicating the 

 way in which this should be done, stated that their Lordships 

 trusted that this self-denying ordinance had not been adopted under 

 any misapprehension of their own views or wishes. " They desire, it 

 may be clearly understood, that they had no wish to impose such a 

 rule as that stated in your letter. On the contrary while fully 

 appreciating the motives which probably induced the Royal Society 

 to impose it they cannot but express the regret which they would 

 feel if it should lead to the loss of the services of some of the most 

 active and distinguished men of science in aid of the distribution of 

 a Grant which, being of a new and tentative character, peculiarly 

 requires the support of those in whose judgment and knowledge the 

 country would place the greatest reliance." The rule in question 

 was not, however, at that time reversed. 



The assignments recommended were each year submitted to the 

 Science and Art Department for approval, and the question of the 

 nature of the vouchers to be rendered having been raised, it was 

 decided that " the receipt of the gentlemen to whom the payments 

 are made will be accepted as a sufficient voucher, without receipts 

 for all the details of the expenditure." 



In the following year (1878) a difficulty began to be experienced 

 by the Department in ascertaining when the investigations were 

 completed, and when the instruments used in the investigations 

 should be called in, and a letter was addressed to the Royal Society 

 upon the subject. A circular was in consequence drawn up by the 

 Society, requesting all who had received Grants to give account 

 of their instruments, and the information thus obtained was com- 

 municated to the Department. The process of obtaining full and 

 accurate account of instruments, and the question of when to call 

 them in, have always been matters of some difficulty, which of late 

 have been somewhat more successfully met by an annual return, 

 which every grantee is required to make, and the information thus 

 obtained is embodied in a Schedule of Instruments which was com- 

 menced in 1883. 



III. GOVERNMENT GRANT OF 4000 A YEAR, 



The Fund of 4000 a year (which had hitherto run concurrently 

 with the Government Grant of 1000) having been initiated as a 



M 



