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prs 28, 1873] 
a 
should be awarded with a view to encouraging original 
research. As regards the professors, we have already 
insisted on the importance of so arranging their duties as 
to give them abundant leisure, and, what is no less indis- 
pensable, abundant opportunities for original investiga- 
tion, by providing the external appliances necessary for it 
We think that the great national interests connected with 
the advancement of Science form one, although only one, 
of the grounds upon which the endowment of professorial 
offices is defensible, and regard it as a great advantage 
that an opportunity is afforded by the peculiar circum- 
stances of the Universities of giving encouragement and 
maintenance to a class of persons who are competent to 
advance Science, and who are willing to make its ad- 
vancement the principal business of their lives. 
“We have already stated, but we would repeat it here, 
that we would on no account have offices founded 
within the Universities without special duties attached to 
them. It is an absolute advantage, if not in all, at least 
in many cases, to a man who is engaged in some abstract 
part of Science, to be compelled to produce, in the form 
of public discourses, the results of his labours ; and it can 
be no disadvantage to him, under any circumstances, to 
be obliged to devote some moderate part of his time to 
showing, if it were only by the example of his own work, 
to younger men, how scientific studies should be carried 
on with the view of promoting human knowledge. We 
believe that in all ordinary cases a certain amount of 
educational work is of advantage to the scientific worker, 
and wealso believe that for the promotion of the highest 
Scientific education it is very desirable to bring the 
original worker into direct personal contact with the 
student. 
“We have also already spoken of the propriety of 
awarding Fellowships in certain instances, not, as at 
present, by an examination test, but for services rendered 
to Science in Original Research. Although we should 
wish, as we have already said, to see this done from 
time to time (as it has already been done at Cambridge) 
in the case of persons who have already made themselves 
eminent in Science, and whose accepting the Fellowship 
is rather to confer an honour upon the office than to 
receive one from it, we also think that a wider application 
should be given to this principle ; and, that whenever a 
Fellowship in Natural Scienceis offered for competition 
among the younger Graduates of the University, such 
evidence as any candidate can offer of his aptitude to 
become an useful worker in Science, should always be 
taken into account in the award. Nothing, we believe, 
would tend to give the students at the Universities so just 
an idea of what Science is, or of what the objects are 
which those who pursue it should have in view, as the 
adoption of the principle by the Universities and the 
Colleges, that the highest honours and rewards in Natural 
Science are to be conferred upon men who can offer some 
evidence that their names are likely afterwards to find a 
place on the list of those who have added to human 
knowledge. 
“ The proposals to which we attach the most import- 
ance with a view to the encouragement of Original 
Research at the Universities are the two to which we 
have just referred: (1) the establishment of a complete 
_ Scientific Professoriate; (2) the appropriation, under 
" 
oa» 
_ NATURE 
ae, eee eS OY et 
7 iy a aah Riad 
339 
certain conditions, of Fellowships to the maintenance of 
persons engaged in Original Research. But, in addition 
to these main proposals, other suggestions are contained 
in the evidence before us, to which we would call especial 
attention ; (1) that Laboratories should be founded ex- 
pressly intended for Research, and for the Training of 
Advanced Students in the methods of research ; (2) that 
Scientific Museums and Collections should be maintained 
to an extent beyond what is required for purely edu- 
cational purposes ; (3) that a Doctorate in Science should 
be instituted. 
“ Proposed Laboratories for Research 
“Tt is one of the disadvantages of an University course 
that a young man, up to the time of taking his degree, 
is straining every nerve in order to master a certain 
amount of knowledge in which he has to pass an exami- 
nation ; and however improving this process may be to 
him in certain respects, the impression is widely enter- 
tained that it is not caculated to develope the originality 
of his mind, or those peculiar qualities which fit a man 
to become a discoverer in Science. As it is indispensably 
necessary that the student should be well grounded in his 
work, and should have a thorough comprehension of the 
methods and principles of his branch of Science, before 
he attempts to add to it, it is not easy to see how this 
disadvantage could be remedied during his undergra- 
duate course; but as soon as his examinations are passed, 
it is surely time that he should be led to regard his studies 
from another point of view, and to give them a different 
direction, He should then be placed in a laboratory 
devoted to original research, and under the immediate 
care of persons who are principally engaged in work of 
that nature. 
“On this point we would again refer to the evidence of 
Sir Benjamin Brodie: ‘I should like (speaking of my 
own department and departments which are cognate with 
it, and I have no doubt that the same remark would also 
apply to Physiology and to other subjects) to see those 
professors have under their control laboratories suited 
for scientific research and investigation, in which they 
should take a certain limited number of students who 
would work, partly as their pupils and partly as their 
assistants, for those ends. And I should myself 
say that this is an educational function of the most 
important character possible, because you would here 
really carry scientific education to its end. If you 
do not do this you stop short of the most important 
part of all in scientific education. Now the real per- 
fection of Science is shown only in scientific inquiry— 
the perfection of Science not only in its general results, 
but the perfection of Science as an instrument for educa- 
tion ; and if you leave out in the University system any 
provision for scientific research, you are leaving out the 
most important feature of the subject. Those pupils 
would be persons who would ultimately pursue the science 
as their main business in life, and become in their turn 
the teachers and the professors of the subject. I am not 
giving a mere chimera or dream, but this is already, 
though not exactly in the way that I am suggesting, 
carried out to a great extent in Germany.’ 
“No less important, as giving one view of this question, 
is the evidence which we have received from Dr. Frank- 
land, who says, ‘In my opinion the cause of this slow 
