NA TURE 



{May I, 1877 



Hooker and he would have strengthened the hands of 

 those who wish to sec science represented in our liigher 

 education, and the addition of their names would cer- 

 tainly not have upset the balance of the Commission, as 

 Prof. Price, Dr. Bateson, and Prof. Max Miiller, would 

 have adequately maintained the interests of the older 

 studies. Surely, when we are setting about the reform of 

 our universities, we want all available information about 

 the systems of foreign countries, and Prof. Max Miiller 

 could have told the Commisiioners many things they 

 have not learnt from their own experience of Oxford and 

 Cambridge. The refusal of the Government to add any 

 names to the original list was an unfortunate sign of the 

 spirit in which they have framed it, and of the attitude 

 in which the Commissioners will face the prolslems before 

 them. Ministers were successful, but their mijorities were 

 so small as to show that the sense of the few members who 

 will not consent as partisans to vote on such questions was 

 decidedly against them. They carried thei: point by 11, 

 34, 24, 26, 32 votes on the successive divisions. After 

 their success nobody will care much what becomes of a 

 bill which is meant to change as little as possible, when 

 every crevice that could let in light from the outside 

 world is carefully stopped against it. 



The speech of the Secretary of Wai", who is Member 

 for the University of Oxford, and the general tone of the 

 debate, clearly confirm these anticipations. There will 

 be a slight restriction of the " prize fellowships," the new 

 Government name for the " idle fellowships " of Lord 

 Salisbury. There will not be a great extension of the pro- 

 fessoriate, provision even having been made for the amalga- 

 mation of several professorships into one. Some money- - 

 5 per cent, from some colleges, 10 per cent, from others, 

 r.othing perhaps from a third class — will be taken from 

 the colleges for university purposes. There is a provision 

 "for the extension, not for the suppression," of scholar- 

 ships. Only the superfluities ofthe colleges are to go to 

 the University, and Mr. Hardy has never had but one 

 opinion on "what some people called the endowment of 

 research." He did not state that opinion so frankly as 

 Mr. Trevelyan, but there was little doubt from the tone of 

 his remarks that it was substantially the same : — 



" It was a mistake, therefore, to assume that we could 

 create in men such qualities by merely endowing old men, 

 and in his opinion it would be better to throw the funds 

 of the Universities into the sea rather than to bestoiv 

 them in the manner which had been proposed. The 

 people whose prayers the House should listen to were the 

 practical teachers of the University, who were bound to 

 celibacy, and who asked them to make their career a 

 better one, to give them a reasonable income, and to 

 allow them to marry without being compelled to resign 

 their positions. These gentlemen would have six months 

 in the year, which they would be able to devote 10 the 

 pursuit of science and literature. What they had to do 

 was to find men for the places, and not places for the 

 men. He begged them to consider well before they 

 created a sort of hierarchy of sinecures and semi-sinecuics 

 which unless human nature was radically altered by this 

 Bill would only lead to academical jobbery and intellectual 

 stagnation." 



No doubt the wholesale conversion ofthe fellowships of 

 residents and, for that matter, of nonresidents into profes- 

 sorships, created in a doctrinaire spirit, and apart from the 

 gradual development of literature and science, would be 



recklessness and folly. Nobody in his senses v/ants such 

 a thing. The real note of despair in the whole debate 

 is that Oxford and Cambridge wish to be let alone, and 

 Oxford and Cambridge men in the House are determined 

 that they shall be let alone to consider every question as 

 it comes up from the mere local point of view of Oxford 

 and Cambridge. The jealous exclusion of outsiders is 

 the surest proof of the intention of the framers of the bill 

 and the clearest prophecy of its issues. 



The Committee made no real alterations in the bill. 

 There was a desperate attempt to maim it by striking out 

 even the possibility of endowments for research. It was 

 resisted and defeated by an overwhelming majority. Mr. 

 Hardy said " the noble lord and the hon. gentleman 

 seemed to be under the apprehension that if research 

 were brought into the University education would be 

 driven out. On the contrary, he held that no teaching 

 could be successful that was not founded on the most 

 minute research. There were, no doubt, many subjects 

 of research which by their nature were not lucrative to 

 those who prosecuted them but the prosecution of which 

 was of great ' importance to education throughout the 

 country, and especially to th3 University in which they 

 were carried on. There was, however, no intention to carry 

 research to the extravagant lengths which some speakers 

 and writers feared would be the case, and vhich would 

 utterly pervert the purposes of the University. So far 

 from diminishing the educational power of the Univei'- 

 sity, that which was proposed would give to education a 

 more solid basis than it now possessed." Mr. Trevelyan 

 accepted Mr. Hardy's statement as "in all respects satis- 

 factory," and added a remark none the less valuable that 

 it is almost a truism, " They could not have a University 

 where education was proceeding without research proceed- 

 ing at the same time." The Commissions will thus be left 

 at liberty to use the funds they can detach from the Col- 

 leges for the endowment of research. But " Researchers," 

 as Prof. Sylvester calls them, will not for many years to 

 come, grow very fat on the good things of Oxford and 

 Cambridge. 



DEEP WELL-BORINGS IN LONDON 



1""HE constantly increasing wants of our English metro- 

 polis were very amply provided for during all the 

 earlier stages of its history by the stores of water con- 

 tained in the extensive beds of gravel lying within the 

 Thames Valley. These stores of water could be reached 

 by means of shallow wells, and all the ancient and famous 

 pumps of our city drew their supplies from this source. 



But, as the popul.ition of the district increased, the 

 value of this source of water-supply became greatly im- 

 paired from two causes ; firstly, the e;:cessive drain upon 

 it, caused by the rapid multiplication of wells ; and 

 secondly, the pollution of its waters by the refuse-matter 

 of a great city. 



Hence it became necessary to seek for new sources of 

 water-supply, and the success which had already attended 

 the construction of Artesian wells in the Tertiary districts 

 of Northern France, led to attempts being made to obtain 

 supplies in a similar manner by putting down borings 

 through the impervious London Clay into the water- 

 bearing beds of the Lower London Tertiaries. 



