September 19, 1901] 



NA TURE 



507 



reaching, and it would be difficult to praise too highly the 

 wisdom displayed by the Commissioners in drawing up the con- 

 ditions on which they are awarded. Firstly, by not limiting 

 them to any one science, they have stimulated a wholesome 

 rivalry between departments to bring on their promising students 

 to the level of scientific investigation. Secondly, they have 

 compelled the governing bodies of educational institutions to 

 recognise and make provision for research as part of the regular 

 programme of these places. Thirdly, they have encouraged 

 talented students to devote an additional year, or even more, 

 to their education in the hope of securing one of these prizes ; 

 and these students have thus provided their teachers with the 

 tersonnel necessary for carrying on scientific work. Fourthly, 

 the scholars themselves have had the inestimable advantage 

 of extending their horizon, and of coming in contact with 

 other teachers, other schools of thought, and other views 

 of life. Fifthly, these scholars on their return, and before 

 they have obtained definite employment, are welcomed as 

 supernumeraries in English colleges, where they have an oppor- 

 tunity of continuing their researches, and where they assist in 

 imbuing the students with the spirit which they have themselves 

 imbibed. Lastly, these and other scholarships of a similar 

 character are providing the country with a body of highly trained 

 men whose value to the nation is annually becoming more 

 appreciated, and whose work will continue to bear fruit directly 

 or indirectly for an indefinite period of time. These Exhibition 

 scholarships have now been awarded since 1891, and already no 

 fewer than sixty-five chemists, including three women, have en- 

 joyed the enormous privilege of extending their education for a 

 period of two, and in special cases even three, years under the 

 most favourable surroundings. 



Bearing in mind the rooted objection which pervades the 

 people of this country to expend any public money on higher 

 education, it is marvellous that it should have been possible to 

 employ this fund, which after all is of a quasi-public character, 

 for what may be described as educational use at a high potential, 

 instead of its being dissipated in the manner so dear to English- 

 men, by benefiting to an infinitesimal extent a much larger 

 number of persons. Indeed, but for the vertebrate character 

 of the Commissioners in 1S77, the fund would have been thus 

 frittered away, for in that year they were waited upon by a 

 deputation of influential persons who urged that the money 

 should be distributed in grants to provincial museums. Had 

 that been done what would have been the re5ult? The masses 

 would have had a few more glass cases to gaze at on wet days and 

 bank holidays ! 



There can, I think, be little doubt that in this matter of the 

 allocation of funds intended for the public good we have reached 

 a turning-point in the road which we have been so long pursuing. 

 Until recently it has been the feeling of a very powerful majority 

 in this country that public money should only be spent in such 

 a way as to directly benefit very large numbers ; and in the case 

 of educational funds, therefore, it was only their utilisation for 

 the benefit of the masses that could be entertained. Now, whilst 

 it is indubitable that the improvement of our primary education 

 was for many years a crying necessity, it has long been obvious 

 to a minority that this policy is systematically starving that 

 higher education in which we are lagging more and more 

 behind those other countries in which greater elasticity prevails, 

 and in which the immediate and obvious wants of the com- 

 munity receive prompt attention without regard to the traditions 

 and doctrinaire principles of a past generation. In the matter 

 of higher scientific education, at any rate, it is becoming more 

 and more widely recognised that its starvation through attention 

 being exclusively directed to the low-level education of the 

 masses is defeating the very ends which this policy has in view. 

 Indeed, some practical men, and even a few statesmen, realise 

 that the many are beginning to suffer from the results which this 

 policy has had on our manufactures and commerce, without 

 which the multitude can have no existence at all. 



The more than princely patronage of higher education by that 

 Scotsman who has not forgotten the land of his birth during 

 fifty years spent in a country which has afforded the necessary 

 scope for his genius and energies illustrates the change in the 

 wind of opinion amongst practical men ; for Mr. Andrew 

 Carnegie's handsome contribution to the funds of the University 

 of Birmingham, and his endowment of the Universities of 

 Scotland on a scale which is altogether without precedent, 

 clearly show which, in his opinion, are the rungs in the educa- 

 tional ladder of this country that require strengthening in the 



NO. 1664, VOL. 64] 



interest of those very masses which it is his earnest desire to 

 benefit. The still more recent response of the City Council of 

 Birmingham to Mr. Chamberlain's suggestion that a rate should 

 be levied in aid of the university of that city is further evidence 

 that Mr. Carnegie's practically expressed opinion is shared by the 

 enlightened rulers of that great municipality to which I have 

 the privilege of belonging. 



These, ladies and gentlemen, are, I believe, no mere sporadic 

 manifestations, but unquestionably signs of the times. The 

 opening of the new century is in reality a year of very serious 

 awakening to those Englishmen who are not deaf to the voices 

 in the air around them. It is rapidly dawning upon many that 

 " the greatest empire which the world has ever seen " cannot be 

 maintained unless we cast off insular prejudices and traditions, 

 and make a careful study of those points in which other nations 

 are our superiors, with a view to the intelligent adaptation and 

 development, as distinguished from mere imitation, of their 

 methods to our own particular needs. 



The survey of the British chemical world at the dawn of the 

 twentieth century affords, however, scope for satisfaction in 

 many ways. Not only have the places in which higher chemical 

 work can be and actually is carried on lieen greatly multiplied, 

 but the number of workers has been largely increased ; and 

 although the enthusiasm of these workers cannot well be greater 

 than that of those who laboured so successfully twenty years and 

 more ago, it has not become diminished, and is certainly diffused 

 more widely amongst the personnel of our colleges and universi- 

 ties. In this connection I need only remind you of the large 

 number of active and independent investigators who are to be 

 found amongst the members of the junior staff at almost every 

 college in the country, and which is altogether without parallel 

 in the past. 



There are hardly any of the great problems now exercising the 

 minds of chemists throughout the world which are not being 

 worked at by some of our number ; whilst that some chapters 

 in the recent progress of chemical science are more or less 

 specifically British, I would only remind you of the isolated 

 labours of Dr. Perkin in the field of magnetic rotatory power ; 

 of Sir William Crookes's exploration of the phenomena occur- 

 ring in high vacua ; of the researches of Abney, Russell, and 

 Hartley on the absorption spectra of organic compounds ; of the 

 investigations by Harold Dixon and Brereton Baker of the 

 behaviour of substances in the complete absence of moisture j 

 of the extension by Pope and Smiles of our knowledge of 

 asymmetric atoms ; of the near approach to the absolute zero 

 of temperature by Dewar ; and of those marvellous discoveries 

 of Raleigh and Ramsay which have not only introduced us to 

 five new aerial elements, but have revealed the existence of a 

 hitherto unknown type of matter, which is apparently incapable 

 of entering into chemical combination at all. 



But whilst we may thus congratulate ourselves on this in- 

 creased activity in chemical investigation, and upon the main- 

 tenance of a high standard of quality by the exceptional 

 brilliancy of the researches of some of our number, we must 

 now carefully consider how we stand with regard to the 

 absolute quantity of our output. 



I have called your attention to the evidence of activity in the 

 British chemical world which is furnished by the number of 

 original investigations communicated to the Chemical Society of 

 London. Let me now ask you to turn to the corresponding 

 picture, which is furnished by the statistics of the much younger 

 Chemical Society of Berlin. 



Original Communications to the Chemical Society of Berlin. 



A comparison between these figures and those of the London 

 Chemical Society shows that chemical science occupies an entirely 

 different place in Germany from that which it even now does 

 in this country. 



