ROMs « 
Sept, 18, 1873] 
‘ 
NATURE 
411 
ideas, by their accurate and conscientious experiments, while at 
the same time professing an actual disbelief in those ideas. 
Those records must indeed have been a dead letter to any who 
could stand carping at the intellectual crotchets of a good and 
honest worker, instead of giving him all brotherly help in the 
furtherance of his work. 
To one who knows the particulars of our science thoroughly, 
and who knows also what a variety of ideas have been resorted 
to in working out the whole body of truths of which the science 
is composed, there are few more impressive and elevating sub- 
jects of contemplation than the unity in the clear and bold out- 
line of that noble structure. 
IT hope that you will not suppose, from my references to 
chemistry as promoting the development of these habits and 
powers of mind, that I wish to claim for that particular branch 
of science any exclusive merit of the kind ; for I can assure you 
that nothing can be further from my intention, 
~ I conceived that you would wish me to speak of that depart- 
ment of science which I have had occasion to study more par- 
ticularly ; but much that I have said of it might be said with 
equal truth of other studies, while some of its merits may be 
claimed in a higher degree by other branches of science. On 
the other hand, those highest lessons which I have illustrated by 
chemistry are best learnt by those whose intellectual horizon in- 
cludes other provinces of knowledge. 
Chemistry presents peculiar advantages for educational purposes 
in the combination of breadth and accuracy in the training which 
it affords ; and I am inclined to think that in this respect it is at 
present unequalled. There is reason to believe that it will play 
an important part in general education, and render valuable 
services to it in conjunction with other scientific and with literary 
studies. 
I trust that the facts which I have submitted to your consi- 
deration may suffice to show you how fallacious is that mate- 
rialistic idea of physical science which represents it as leading 
away from the study of man’s noblest faculties, and from a 
sympathy with his most elevated aspirations, towards mere inani- 
mate matter. The material work of science is directed by ideas 
towards the attainment of further ideas. Each step in science 
is an addition to our ideas, or an improvement of them. A 
science is but a body of ideas respecting the order of nature. 
Fach idea which forms part of physical science has been 
derived from observation of nature, and has been tested again 
and again in the most various ways by reference to nature ; but 
this very soundness of our materials enables us to raise upon the 
rock of trath a loftier structure of ideas than could be erected on 
any other foundation by the aid of uncertain materials. 
The study of science is the study of man’s most accurate and 
perfect intellectual labours ; and he who would know the powers 
of the human mind must go to science for his materials. 
Like other powers of the mind, the imagination is powerfully 
exercised, and at the same time disciplined, by scientific work. 
Every investigator has frequent occasion to call forth in his mind 
a distinct image of something in nature which could produce the 
appearances which he witnesses, or to frame a proposition em- 
bodying some observed relation ; and in each case the image or 
the proposition is required to be true to the materials from which 
it is formed. There is perhaps no more perfect elementary il- 
lustration of the accurate and useful employment of the ima- 
gination than the process of forming in the language of symbols, 
from concrete data, one of those admirable general propositions 
called equations ; on the other hand, the contemplation of the 
order and harmony of nature as disclosed to us by science 
supplies the imagination with materials of surpassing grandeur 
and brilliancy, while at the same time affording the widest scope 
for its effects, 
The foregoing considerations respecting the meaning and use 
of scientific work will, I trust, afford us aid in considering what 
measures ought to be taken in order to promote its advancement, 
and what we can do to further the adoption of such measures. 
Like any other natural phenomenon, ‘the growth of knowledge 
in the human mind is favoured and promoted by certain circum- 
stances, impeded or arrested by others ; and it is for us to ascer- 
tain from experience what those circumstances respectively are, 
and how the favourable ones can be best combined to the 
exclusion of the others. 
The best and noblest things in this world are the result of 
gradual growth by the free action of natural forces; and the 
~ proper function of legislation is to systematise the conditions 
most favourable to the free action which is desired. 
I shall consider the words ‘* Advancement of Science” as 
referring, to the development and extension of our systematic 
knowledge of natural phenomena by investigation and research. 
The first thing wanted for the work of advancing science is a 
supply of well qualified workers. The second thing is to place 
and keep them under the conditions most favourable to their 
efficient activity. The most suitable men must be found while 
still young, and trained to the work. Now I know only one 
really effectual way of finding the youths who are best en- 
dowed by nature for the purpose ; and that is to systematise and 
develop the natural conditions which accidentally concur in par- 
ticular cases, and enable youths to rise from the crowd. 
The first of these is that a young man gets a desire for know- 
ledge by seeing the value and beauty of some which he has 
acquired, When he has got this desire, he exerts himself to in- 
crease his store ; and every difficulty surmounted increases his 
love of the pursuit, and strengthens his determination to go on, 
His exertions are seen by some more experienced man, who helps 
him to place himself under circumstances favourable to further 
progress. fle then has opportunities of seeing original inquiries 
conducted, perhaps even of aiding in them ; and he longs to 
prove that he also can work out new truths, and make some 
permanent addition to human knowledge. If his circumstances 
enable him to prosecute such work, and he succeeds in making 
some new observations worthy of publication, he is at once 
known by them to the community of scientific men, and em- 
ployed among them. 
We want, then, a system which shall give to the young favour- 
able opportunities of acquiring a clear and, as far as it goes, a 
thorough knowledge of some few truths of nature such as they 
can understand and enjoy—which shall afford opportunity of 
further and further instruction to those who have best profited 
by that which has been given to them, and are anxious to obtain 
more—which shall enable the best students to see what original 
investigation is, and, if possible, to assist in carrying out some 
research—and, finally, which shall supply to each student who | 
has the power and the will to conduct researches, all material 
conditions which are requisite for the purpose, 
* But investigators, once found, ought to be placed in the cir- 
cumstances most favourable to their efficient activity. 
The first and most fundamental condition for this is, that their 
desire for the acquisition of knowledge be kept alive and fos- 
tered. They must not merely retain the hold which they have 
acquired on the general body of their science ; they ought to 
strengthen and extend that hold, by acquiring a more complete 
and accurate knowledge of its doctrines and methods; in a 
word, they ought to be more thorough students than during their . 
state of preliminary training. 
They must be able to live by their work, without diveriing 
any of their energies to other pursuits; and they must feel 
security against want in the event of illness or old age. 
They must be supplied with intelligent and trained assistants 
to aid in the conduct of their researches, and whatever buildings, 
apparatus, and materials may be required for conducting those 
researches effectively. : 
The desired system must therefore provide arrangements 
favourable to the maintenance and development of the true 
student-spirit in investigators while providing them with perma- 
nent means of subsistence, sufficient to enable them to feel 
secure and tranquil in working at science alone, yet not sufficient 
to neutralise their motives for exertion ; and at the same time it 
must give them all external aids, in proportion to their wants 
and powers of making good use of them. 
Now I propose to describe the outlines of such a system, 
framed for the sole purpose of promoting research, and then to 
consider what other results would follow from its working. 
If it should appear possible to establish a system for the effi- 
cient advancement of science, which would be productive of 
direct good to the community in other important ways, I think 
you will agree with me that we ought to do all we can to pro- 
mote its adoption. 
Let the most intelligent and studious children from every pri- 
mary school be sent, free of expense, to the most accessible 
secondary school for one year ; let the best of these be selected 
and allowed to continue for a second year, and so on, until the 
élite of them have learnt all that is to be there learnt to advan- 
tage. Let the best pupils from the secondary schools be sent to 
a college of their own selection, and there subjected to a similar 
process of annual weeding ; and, finally, let those who get satis- 
factorily to the end of a college curriculum be supplied with an 
allowance sufficient for their maintenance for a year, on condi- 
tion of their devoting their undivided energies to research, under 
