Sept. 27, 18S3J 



NA TORE 



5-i 



teaching, and scientific research must be provided for out of 

 other funds than those extracted from the pockets of needy 

 students, who have a reasonable right to demand, in return for 

 their fees, a full modicum of instruction and direction in study. 



In the German universities, the professor receives a sipend 

 which provides for him as an investigator. He also gives 

 lectures, for which he charges a fee, but.no student is compelled 

 to attend those lectures as a condition of obtaining his degree. 

 Accordingly, independent teachers can, and do, compete with 

 the professor in providing for the students' requirements in the 

 matter of instruction. As a consequence, the fees charged for 

 teaching are exceeding small, and the student can feel a-sured 

 that he is obtaining his money's worth f >r his money. He is not 

 compelled to pay any fee to any teacher as a condition of his 

 promotion to the university degree. In a German umver ity, if 

 the professor in a given subject is incompetent, or the class over- 

 crowded, the student can take his fee to a private teacher, and 

 get better teaching ; all that is required of the candidate, as a 

 condition of his pro. notion to the Doctor's degree, is that he 

 shall satisfy the examination-te-ts imposed by the faculty, and 

 produce an original thesis. 



Unless there be some such compelling influence as that 

 obtaining in the Scotch univer-ities, enabling the would-be 

 researcher to gather to him pupils and fees without fear of 

 competition, it seems impossible that he should gain an income 

 by teaching whilst reserving to himself time and energy for the 

 pursuit of scientific inquiry. It is thus seen that the neces-ity of 

 endowment, in some form or another, to make provision for 

 scientific research, is a reality, in spite of the suggestion that 

 teaching affords a means whereby the researcher may readily 

 prjvide for himself. The simple fact is that a teacher can only 

 make a sufficient income by teaching, on the condition that he 

 devotes his whole time and energy to that occupation. 



Whilst I feel called upon to emphatically distinguish the two 

 functions — viz., that of creating new knowledge, and that of 

 distributing existing knowledge — and to maintain that it is only 

 by arbitrary and -undesirable arrangement-, not likely to be 

 tolerated, or, at any rate, extended, at the present day, that the 

 latter can be made to serve as the support of the former, I must 

 be careful to point out that I agree most cordially with those who 

 hold that it is an excellent thing for a man who is engaged in the 

 one to give a certain amount of time to the other, it is a matter 

 of experience that the best teachers of a su .ject are, ctfle is 

 paribus, those who are actually engaged in the advancement of 

 that subject, and who have shown Mich a thorough understanding 

 of that subjert as is neces-ary for making new knowledge in 

 connection with it. It is also, in most rases, a good thing for 

 the man engaged in research to have a certain small amount of 

 change of occupation, and to be called upon to take such a 

 survey of the subject in connection with which his researches are 

 made, as is involved in the delivery of a course of lectures and 

 other details of teaching Though it is not a thing to be con- 

 templated that the researcher shall sell hi-, instruc'ion at a price 

 sufficiently high to enable hiun to live by teaching, yet it is a good 

 thing to make teaching an additional and subsidiary part of his 

 life's work. This end is effected in Germany by making it a 

 duty of the professor, already .supported by a stipend, to give 

 some five or mx lectures a week during the academical se sion, 

 for which he is paid by the fees of his hearers. The fees are 

 low, but are sufficient to be an inducement ; aid, inasmuch as 

 the attendance of the students is not compulsory, the profe-sor is 

 stimulated to produce good and effective lectures at a reasonable 

 charge, so as to attract pupils who would seek instruction from 

 some one else if the lectures were not good or the fees too high. 

 Indeed, in Germany this system works so much to the advantage 

 of the students, that the private teachers of the universities at 

 one time obtained the creation of a regulation forbidding the 

 professors to reduce their fees below a certain minimum, since, 

 with so lew a fee as some professors were charging, it was 

 impossible for a private teacher to compete ! This state of 

 things may be compared, with much advantage, with the con- 

 dition of British universities. In these we hear, from one 

 direction, complaints of the high fees charged and of the in 

 effective teaching given by the professoriate ; and in other univer- 

 sities, where no adequate fees are allowed to the professors as 

 a stimulus to them to offer useful and efficient teaching, we find 

 that the teaching has 1 assed entirely out of their hands into 

 those of college tutor; and lecturers. The fact is that a satis- 

 factory relation between tenching and research is one which will 

 not naturally and spontaneously arrange itself. It can hardly be 

 said to exist in any British university or college, but the method 



has been thought out and carried into practice in Germany. It 

 consists in giving a competent researcher a stipend and a 

 laboratory for his reearch work, and then requiring him to do- 

 a small amount of teaching, remunerated by fees proportionate 

 to his ability and the pains which he may take in his teaching. 

 If you pay him a fixed sum as a teacher, or artifically insure the 

 attendance of his class, instead of letting this part of his income 

 vary simply and directly with the attractiveness of his teaching, 

 you will find as the re-ult that (with rare exceptions) he will not 

 give effective and useful teaching. He will naturally tend to do 

 the minimum required of him, in a perfunctory way. On the 

 other hand, if you leave him without stipend as a researcher, 

 dependent on the fees of pupils for an income, he will give alt 

 his time and energies to teaching, he will cease to do any 

 research, and become, fro tanto, an inferior teacher. 



A third objection which is sometimes made to the proposition 

 that scientific re-earch must be supported and paid for as such, 

 is the following : It is believed by many persons that a man who 

 occupies his best energies in -cie liHc research can always, if he 

 choose, make an income by writing popular books or newspaper 

 articles in his spare hours; and, accordingly, it is gravely main- 

 tained that there is no need to provide stipends and the means 

 of carrying on their work for researchers. To do so, according 

 to this vie-' , would be to encourage them in an exclusive reti- 

 cence, and to remove from them the inducement !o addre-s the 

 public on the subject of their researches, by which the public 

 would lose valuable instruction. 



This view has been seriously urged, or I should not here 

 notice it Any one who is acquainted w ith the sale of scientific 

 books, and the profits which either au'hor or publ^her makes 

 by them, knows that the suggestion x> hich I have quoted is 

 ludicrous. The writing of a good book is not a thing to le 

 done in leisure moments, and such as have been the result of 

 original research have c st their authors often years of labour 

 apart from the mere writing. Mr. Darwin's books, no doubt, 

 have had a large sale ; but that is due to the fact, apart from 

 the exceptional genius of the man who wrote them, that they 

 represent some thirty or mere j ears of hard work, during which 

 he was silent. There is not a sufficiently large public interested 

 in the progress of science to enable a researcher to gain an 

 income by writing books, however great his literary facility. A 

 school-book or class-book may now and then add more or less 

 to the income-of a scientific investigator ; I ut he who becomes 

 the popular exponent of scientific ideas, except in a very 

 moderate and limited degree, must abandon the work of creating 

 new knowledge. The professional litteratiur of science is as 

 much removed by his occupation from all opportunity of serious 

 investigation as is the professional teacher who has to consume 

 all his time in teaching. Any other profes inn — such as the 

 Bar, Medicine, or the Church — is more likely to leave one of 

 its followers time and means for scientific research than is that 

 of either the popular writer or the successful teacher. 



We have, then, seen that there is no escape from the necessity 

 of providing stipends and laboratories for the purpose of creating 

 new knowledge, as is done in continental States, if we arc- 

 agreed that more of this new knowledge is needed and is among 

 the products which a civilised community is bound to turn out, 

 both for its own benefit and for that of the community of States, 

 which give to and take from one another in such matters. 



There are some who would finally attack our contention by 

 denying that new knowledge is a good thing, and by refu ing t<> 

 recognise any obligation on the part of England to contribute 

 her share to that common stock of increasing knowledge by 

 which she necessarily profits. Among such persons are those- 

 who would prohibit altogether the pursuit of experiment* f 

 physiology in England, and yet would not and do not hesitate 

 to avail themselves of the services of medical men, whose power 

 of rendering th..se services depends on the fact that they have 

 learnt the results obtained by the experiments of ply iologisi- 

 in other countries or in former times. In reference to thi- 

 strange contempt and even hatred of science, which undoubtedly 

 has an existence among some persons of consideration, even : ^ 

 the present day, I shall have a few words to say before con- 

 cluding this address. I have now to ask you to listen to what 

 seems to me to be the demand which we should make, as 

 members of a British Association for the Advancement < f 

 Science, in respect of adequate provision for the creation of new 

 knowledge in the field of biology in England. 



Taking England alone, as distinct from Scotland and Ireland, 

 we require in order to be approximately on a level with Germany, 

 forty new biological institutes, distributed among the five 



