58 SCIENCE AND THE PRESS 



paragraph, except the last part, which is quite wrong. The 

 last paragraph is well, perhaps it does not matter. 1 



Now, when I looked this morning at my paper I felt that 

 there must have been some conspiracy to take away any justi- 

 fication for the remarks I was going to make this evening, for 

 there, in the honourable position of a leading article, was an 

 admirable and interesting discussion of what had actually been 

 discovered about Polonium, and what the paragraph I have just 

 quoted had made such an unsuccessful attempt to announce. 

 The article was evidently written by someone who was well 

 versed in the subject. .1 say I look upon this phenomenon as 

 the result either of a. conspiracy or some strange accident. 



I do not wish at all to overstate my case, and I should like 

 to make full acknowledgement of signs of improvement which 

 are apparent. In recent years The Times has begun to 

 publish a weekly Engineering Supplement which is seriously 

 and admirably scientific. The Manchester Guardian also 

 has frequent articles on the industrial application of science 

 which are authoritative. The lamented Tribune had a 

 weekly scientific causerie written in excellent style by a distin- 

 guished physicist. I might give illustrations also from nearer 

 home as, indeed,! have with some penitence just done. Lately 

 I had a communication from another great London daily fore- 

 shadowing a determined attempt to do more justice to science. 



Now I am afraid you may think that I am adopting a some- 

 what censorious and ungracious attitude, and that you are 

 being lectured to, I may say lectured at, more than you bargained 

 for. I will not longer delay giving you my reasons for speaking 

 as I have done. The fact is, my desire that the Press should 

 take a warmer interest in science comes from my sense of the 

 tremendous power for good or ill that rests in the hands of 



1 In the eleven years since this was written there has been little improve- 

 mentj. Equally absurd examples are available from this week's press 

 January 1921. 



