November 2, 1905] 



NA TURE 



" That the Right Hon. R. B. Haldane be elected president 

 of the British Science Guild." He said they had met 

 together to enforce as far as they could what had fallen 

 front Sir Norman Lockyer's lips. He supposed that all of 

 them who had reflected would realise that the time had 

 come in which it was desirable that an organisation 

 specifically directed to that end should take its place among 

 the useful institutions and associations of this country. 

 He was quite sure that those who had thought hitherto 

 of the somewhat aimless way in which the benevolent 

 had gone about their work and the somewhat haphazard 

 way in which, indeed, some of the industrious had pursued 

 theirs, must realise that those ways were not likely to 

 conduce to the general welfare, or even to conduce to the 

 very object which the benevolent and the industrious had 

 in view. He knew there were some who still looked 

 askance at the words science and scientific method, and 

 they had a sort of dim idea that science and scientific 

 methods had come to destroy some of the most beautiful 

 instincts of our nature. They were inclined to say to 

 people that the new fangled notions had come in to 

 incommode them in their activities, to destroy their 

 cherished notions, and to check their benevolent intentions. 

 But that was to misunderstand, as he took it, the whole 

 situation. No person, however devoted he might be to 

 the cause of science and scientific method, believed for a 

 moment that science would be able to create faith or to 

 create charity. They might, however, do a great deal to 

 give confidence to faith, and certainly might guide the feet 

 of charity into the ways and methods of wisdom. The 

 value of applying science and scientific methods to all 

 forms of human endeavour lay in the simple fact that 

 there was the educating power which charity and benevo- 

 lent impulse so generally and so legitimately desired. 

 Everyone desired to help the needy ; but who did not 

 know that the methods of indiscriminate charity had 

 really ended in defeating the ends which the charitable 

 had in view? But the scientific study of economic con- 

 ditions was capable of putting into the hands of the 

 charitable the proper method of dealing with the needy. 

 He could only recall to their minds what an eminent 

 Frenchman said in speaking of France after the war. He 

 said, speaking of his fellow-countrymen and of the sub- 

 ject which had occupied Sir Norman Lockyer's mind that 

 da) namely, the subject of general and specific education 

 from a national standpoint — that they had been defeated, 

 not by Bismarck and Moltke alone, but by Kant and 

 Hegel, Goethe and Schiller and Humboldt, and other 

 great minds which Germany had produced. They had 

 been defeated, in fact, he said, by the brain — the educated 

 brain and the scientific method of those who contended 

 against them. It was not the victory of arms alone, 

 but the victory of brain brought to bear upon the field of 

 war. He could imagine two classes of men becoming 

 strongly and earnestly interested in this endeavour. He 

 could understand the benevolent saying, " Teach us how 

 to do good," and he could understand those who were 

 interested in the prosperity of the nation saying, "Teach 

 us how best to procure it." The benevolent mind was 

 constantly brought into anxiety and suspense by questions 

 of solicitude concerning the safety and the health of our 

 fellow creatures, but here was a simple method by which 

 science might come and say to the benevolent, " We are 

 helping you to prepare the way." Let him direct their 

 attention to two great institutions which existed, one in 

 Holland and the other in Germany. There were two 

 museums, called Museums of Safety, the purpose of which 

 was to show in working models every appliance which had 

 been devised by the care and the study of scientific men 

 and experts for the protection of life and limb, for the 

 promotion of health, for preventing the accident in the 

 mine, the accident in the mill, the danger to health 

 arising from noxious vapours in some of our great places 

 of employment, and the accumulated dust which gets into 

 the lungs of I he worker. These and other important 

 matters affecting the safety and the welfare of the people 

 were dealt with in these museums. People were taught 

 the best method of feeding their children bv showing 

 them what might be called the various values, the health 

 values, of foodstuffs. They were shown also in economical 

 fashion how a house might be built. These museums 



NO. 1879, VOL. 7$\ 



existed, and, with their working models, were open five 

 days in the week for the inspection and instruction of 

 the public. What were those great Museums of Safety 

 which they found in Charlottenburg and Amsterdam 

 but living witnesses of how scientific methods might be 

 brought to bear on the protection of the health and life 

 of the people of the world? Our manufacturers, and 

 perhaps our farmers, had been content to go on in what 

 might be called jogtrot ways, not watching how far know- 

 ledge had advanced beyond them, and the mere rule of 

 thumb and the traditional methods had prevailed some- 

 times to the detriment of industry, often to that of the 

 consumer. Those things were precisely the way in which 

 that Science Guild might come forward and do what had 

 been done in Germany, so that there might be places 

 where the manufacturer and farmer might go and get 

 scientific advice of the best character. Those were things 

 which meant the one thing for which the guild had come 

 into existence — namely, the application of scientific methods 

 to human endeavours throughout the world. Precisely 

 because the pressure of the competition of the world had 

 become so great it was for us to say that the old England 

 that we loved and were proud of should hold her place 

 among the nations of the world, and as she had the 

 courageous heart and the enthusiastic spirit so also she 

 should be given the clear-thinking brain and the well- 

 studied handicraft and industry. The urgency of the 

 thing was clear, and the only way in which it could be 

 applied was clear also. He concluded by proposing Mr. 

 Haldane as president, and spoke of him as one who knew 

 what was necessary for the public good, and essential for 

 its industrial prosperity, and who added to that the weight 

 of his name and the strong position which he held in the 

 legal and political world. 



Lord Strathcona seconded the motion. In doing so he 

 said that it must be a great relief and satisfaction to all 

 of them to find that they had placed before them some- 

 thing which savoured in no sense of party politics — an 

 object which was for the general good. 



Sir W. Mather supported the motion. He said that 

 in this country we had the foundations for the highest 

 scientific industry the world possessed. We had in 

 many of our industries the most brilliant scientific 

 methods and processes. We had plenty of science in 

 England ; we knew what the Germans knew, and what 

 the Americans knew. The trouble was that the people 

 nf England had not been trained to enable them to use 

 largely the methods of science and the principles of 

 science which the people of other countries — not the select 

 men, not the men specially gifted, not the men of genius 

 only, but the men who had the conduct, even in subor- 

 dinate positions, of some of the departments of scientific 

 manufacture — possessed. The association had for one of 

 its objects the promotion of scientific education through- 

 out the Empire by encouraging the universities and other 

 institutions, where the bounds of science were extended, 

 or new applications of science were devised. What men 

 like himself looked for in adopting scientific methods 

 generallv throughout their workshops was the foreman 

 class, the subordinate managers, the managers who could 

 carrv out th° advanc > of science which emanated from 

 the top. He had just returned to England after four 

 months' absence in the United States, and he found, 

 while in America, that the whole tendency and trend 

 of American thought and feeling was to take masses of 

 their young men and train them, so that they might 

 take their part not as managers, employers, capitalists, 

 and so on, but as workers in their industries. That 

 society had before it its greatest work in looking to 

 the education of the people of England. It should work 

 upon the Government of the day, Liberal or Conservative, 

 and take care that there should be sufficient expenditure 

 and sufficient convenience provided throughout the length 

 and breadth of the land to enable our young people to 

 have some opportunities in their lives like those which 

 were afforded to the young people of the United States. 



The resolution was carried unanimously. 



Mr. Haldane, who was received with cheers, said he 

 gratefully acknowdedged that resolution and the honour 

 which they had conferred upon him in electing him 

 president of that new organisation. He did not know 



