NATURE 
97 
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1872 
SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND UNIVERSITY 
ENDOWMENTS 
‘AJ OTWITHSTANDING the great development of 
scientific education, and the firm and prominent 
position which Science holds in public estimation, it must 
be admitted that a profound dissatisfaction and anxiety 
are the prevailing feelings with which the conditions and 
prospects of English science are regarded by the culti- 
vators of knowledge. To the outside observer these senti- 
ments appear simply captious and unreasonable. When 
so much has been done, why on earth should we com- 
plain? The truth, however, unhappily is, that in the 
midst of our apparent abundance we have still a great 
deficiency ; and those fruits and results of Science, in the 
way of scientific research and discovery, which afford 
the true measure of our scientific condition, have by 
no means proportionably increased. Indeed it may be 
doubted whether the annual harvest of scientific truth is 
even as abundant as twenty or thirty years since, when 
Science had hardly penetrated even the outer crust of 
English society. The character of our scientific periodicals 
is essentially altered. The Journal of the Chemical 
Society, for example, of which the original and proper 
function was to print the investigations of English 
chemists, now appearsto exist simply to inform us of 
what is accomplished elsewhere. The volume for the 
year 1871 is a stout octavo of 1,224 pages; of these, 
however, not more than 154 are occupied with original 
communications read before the Society, while the rest of 
the volume is filled with innumerable abstracts of the 
investigations of the chemists of Germany and France. 
Ten years ago the same journal contained on the average 
at least 400 pages of original matter. 
Now, the perfection of science, in all the various aspects 
in which it appears as an instrument of human progress, 
is manifested only in scientific inquiry ; and to the scien- 
tific mind no technical skill, no abundance of informa- 
tion, can he a substitute for this, or compensate for its 
absence. 
This view of the condition of Science is not invalidated 
by the circumstance that a certain number of distinguished 
Englishmen are to be found whose scientific work is of 
the highest order. 
In this country there are now, as has been the case in 
each generation for the last two hundred years, a limited 
number of individuals of powerful intellect and elevated 
aspirations, who have made scientific research the main 
purpose and object of their lives. Of such we have hap- 
pily sufficient living examples to preserve among us the 
true type of the scientific investigator, and to dispel the 
apprehension of intellectual degeneracy. The labours, 
however, of modern Science are on far too extensive a 
scale to be carried on simply by the efforts of eminent 
individuals. Science requires the services of a class 
devoted to the extension of knowledge, precisely as other 
classes of society are devoted to commerce, to politics, or 
to agriculture. Such a class does not exist among us, 
and its absence is the greatest defect in our social system. 
Undoubtedly there are many causes which interfere 
with the growth of such a class. The unremunera- 
No, 163—vVoL, VII. 
tive character of scientific work, the want of intelli- 
gent appreciation on the part of the public, of even the 
value and importance of such work by which the student 
is deprived of that most powerful stimulus to exertion, 
the sympathy and support of others, deter many from the 
career of Science. Moreover, the very spread of scien- 
tific knowledge and education is, in its results, by no 
means in all respects favourable to the pursuit of pure 
Science. A demand is created for the services of scien- 
tific men in a technical direction which it is very difficult 
to meet, and which induces the student of Science to turn 
his attention to the practical and remunerative rather than 
to the theoretical aspect of his vocation. Many a man, 
too, of genius for research is compelled by the sad neces- 
sities of life to labour at the oar for the service of the 
community, is drafted into the ranks of popular lecturers 
to amuse the public with ready talk and brilliant experi- 
ments, or spends a life which he would willingly devote 
to scientific investigation as an officer of health, or an ana- 
lytical and manufacturing chemist. 
Such impediments, however, to the indulgence of men’s 
higher tastes and desires, have their root in the very 
organisation and necessities of modern society, and are 
not peculiar to English life. But Science has in this 
country one special difficulty to contend with—the utter 
apathy in regard to the advancement of knowledge which 
has so long prevailed at the English Universities, which, 
without any doubt, is the main cause of our disasters. 
In Germany the universities are the very centres of 
intellectual progress ; and we might reasonably have 
hoped that here also amid the distractions of 
modern life these great institutions would have afforded 
at least one refuge for science and learning, and have 
supplied the few who might possess any exceptional capa- 
city for these pursuits with the means of existence and 
the means of work. Such, indeed, was undoubtedly the 
main object to which these noble institutions were 
destined by their founders, who equipped them with all 
the appliances necessary for the cultivation of the know- 
ledge of their day. But, unfortunately, they fell into 
wrong hands, and the class to whose protection and care 
these great interests were confided betrayed in every way 
the trust committed to them; until at length abuses 
reached such a point that, after a prolonged agitation, 
university reformers succeeded in obtaining the inter- 
ference of the Legislature in the form of the Executive 
| Commission of 1854. The unsatisfactory way in which 
this commission proceeded to remedy the evils com- 
plained of is even now not generally understood. 
When we consider the profound importance of learning 
and scientific discovery, not alone to the material and 
physical, but also to the intellectual and moral progress 
of the nation, we might well have anticipated that in any 
reform of the universities the first object of our statesmen 
and legislators would have been to provide for these great 
interests, and to restore the endowments of the university 
in this respect to their ancient uses. But the commission 
did nothing of the kind ; its efforts were mainly directed 
to the suppression of pecuniary jobbery. But this having 
been effected, the further changes which they introduced 
proceeded upon the lowest possible estimate of the 
functions of an University, which they appear to have 
regarded not at all as a national instrument for the — 
G 
