THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 1873 
SCIENTIFIC ENDOWMENTS AND BEQUESTS 
OME weeks ago we published the notice issued by 
Trinity College, Cambridge, respecting a Fellow- 
ship offered by that corporation for Natural Science, in 
which Zoology is one of the subjects by which it may be 
obtained. Candidates are required to send to the electors 
“any papers which they may have published containing 
original observations, or experiments, or discussions ot 
scientific questions, or any similar matter in manuscript,” 
and they “will be liable to be examined in the subjects of 
their papers and in subjects connected with them, or in 
the branch of science to which they refer.” 
A fortnight ago,a New York correspondent gave us 
the details of a munificent bequest made by Mr. John 
Anderson, a wealthy merchant of that city, to Prof. 
Agassiz, and through him to the University of Cambridge, 
Massachusetts, of Penikese Island, situated about 170 
miles eist by north of New York, and 12 miles south of 
Boston, on the New England coast, as a station for the 
study of Practical Zoology, mainly marine. Finding that 
pecuniary aid was also absolutely necessary to put the 
whole in working order, Mr. Anderson, with a libera- 
lity almost unprecedented, put 50,000 dollars at Prof. 
Agassiz’s disposal, “as a nucleus for a permanent en- 
dowment fund” in the formation of his Marine Natu- 
ralists’ School. 
The above-cited cases are two of the most important 
steps that have been taken of late to advance the 
thorough study of zoology either in England or America, 
but the method employed by the one to arrive at this 
result is so different from that adopted by the other, that 
the question may well be asked, which of the two in the 
long run will produce the most satisfactory results? Is 
it better, as done by Trinity College, to offer considerable 
and substantial rewards to students of promise, or,as in 
the case of Mr. Anderson’s gift, to simply place undoubt- 
edly great facilities in the way of untried beginners on 
the subject? 
Notwithstanding the extreme liberality shown by Mr. 
Anderson in his bequest, we cannot help feeling that 
most of the previous attempts that have been made to 
advance science by providing increased facilities for 
work, without at the same time improving the general 
prospect of a sufficient livelihood for those who devote 
the whole or the most of their time to it, have met with 
but little success ; and perhaps there is nothing more 
disappointing to those who are anxious for the progress 
' of the subject, to see the way in which establishments 
excellently planned at great cost, are often almost at a 
standstill for want of their most important element—. 
pupls. Such a method of procedure, if numbers are 
obtained, is likely but to produce an assemblage of ama- 
teur students, whose work, as it must be from the lack of 
sufficient stimulus to great mental effort, is poor from its 
want of thoroughness, and therefore comparatively useless 
in the long run, only encumbering the subject and leading 
lookers-on to suppose, from the few results arrived at, 
that the science is not worthy of deeper consideration. 
No, 182—VOL. vit. 
NATURE 
477 
Zoology and Biology generally have suffered much already 
from such kind of work. 
The tendency of all observation as to the origin and 
development of the sciences which are now firmly esta- 
blished, is to prove quite clearly that what was required 
in each of them to give it a start, and make it continue 
to advance rapidly, was that it should have a practical 
bearing of some kind or another. There cannot be the 
least doubt that the rapid advances which have occurred 
in the study of electricity, and the large number of valu- 
able discoveries and important laws that have been found 
out concerning it, are but the expression of the mercan- 
tile value of the telegraph system as it now exists; the 
forensic and manufacturing importance of chemistry has 
in great measure raised it to the important position it 
now holds; and the money voted for the observations of 
the transit of Venus is indirectly connected with the im- 
portance of astronomical observation in facilitating navi- 
gation. But it is not at all easy to show clearly that 
there are any direct practical results to be arrived at from 
the study of zoology ; the knowledge of the facts that 
our relationship with the higher apes is more in- 
timate than has been till lately supposed, and that 
we must consider an Ascidian as the Noah of our 
zoological pedigree, may be of interest to many as curious 
results, but they do not lead to or suggest fresh methods of 
action on the part of anyone, and cannot otherwise be made 
profitable. Consequently other means must be em- 
ployed to cause the science to progress in a manner which 
does credit to the large number of new facts which are 
continually being brought forward, and the method 
adopted by Trinity College is one which promises the 
best results. That the prospect of a Fellowship is 
a strong inducement to work is undisputed, and what all 
biologists would like to see, is a little more willingness on 
the part of other colleges in both Universities, to give 
them to deserving students of the subject. Some profess 
to place natural science on the same footing as the other 
University final examinations, with regard to pecuniary 
rewards, but it is very seldom, scarcely ever indeed, that 
we have the opportunity of recording in our columns any 
elections to natural science fellowships. As lonz as 
classics hold the position that they do—one maintained 
only by the funds and appointments which, but from an 
excessive and short-sighted conservatism, would have 
been in great measure diffused in other directions long 
before now, no complaint can be made of the compara- 
tively non-practical bearing of zoology and comparative 
anatomy; for though classics may be a good mental 
training, so is the latter, and the study of the former has 
certainty not a more practical bearing. : 
The principle on which the election to the New Trinity 
Fellowship is to be conducted, is evidently the result of 
mature consideration and experience, partly no doubt 
arrived at after the unsuccessful experiment in the same 
direction a little more than two years ago, in which it was 
made too evijent that a simple examination on the 
subject could not ensure the discovery of a genuine 
Zovlogist. A much more successful result may be 
anticipated from the new system of election, for it is 
difficult to believe that any candidate, who at the time 
of election has completed sufficient good work to satisfy 
the electors, can possibly, on account of its intrinsic 
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