412 
NATURE 
eo ice 
| Sept. 18, 1873 
the inspection of competent college authorities, while allowed 
such aids and facilities as the college can supply, with the addi- 
tion of money-grants for special purposes. Let all who do well 
during this first year be allowed similar advantages fora second 
and even a third year. 
Each young investigator thus trained must exert himself to 
obtain some appointment, which may enable him to do the most 
useful and creditable work of which he is capable, while com- 
biring the conditions most favourable to his own improvement. 
Let there be in every college as many Professorships and 
Assistantships in each branch of science as are needed for the 
efficient conduct of the work there going on, and let every 
Professor and Assistant have such salary and such funds for 
apparatus, &c., as may enable -him to devote all his powers to 
the duties of his post, under conditions favourable to the success 
of those duties.; but let each professor receive also a proporiion 
of the fees paid by his pupils, so that it may be his direct interest 
to do his work with the utmost attainable efficiency, and attract 
more pupils. a 
Let every college and school be governed by an independent 
body of men, striving to increase its usefulness and reputation, 
by sympathy with the labours of the working staff, by material 
aid to them when needed, and by getting the very best man they 
can, from their own orany other college, to supply each vacancy 
as it arises. 
In addition to colleges, which are and always have been the 
chief institutions for the advancement of learning, establishments 
for the observation of special phenomena are frequently needed, 
and will doubtless be found desirable in aid of a general system 
for the advancement of science. 
Now, if a system fulfilling the conditions which I have thus 
briefly sketched out were once properly established on a sufh- 
cient scale, it ought to develop and improve itself by the very 
process of its working ; and it behoves us, in judging of the sys- 
tem, to consider how such development and improvement would 
come about. 
The thing most needed at the present time for the advance- 
ment of science is a supply of teachers devoted to that object— 
men so earnestly striving for more knowledge and better know- 
ledge as to be model students, stimulating and encouraging those 
around them by their example as much as by their teaching. 
Young men do not prepare themselves in any numbers for such 
a career :— 
I. Because the chief influences which surround them at school 
and at college are not calculated to awaken in them a desire to 
obtain excellence of such kind. 
II. Because they could not expect by means of such qualities 
to reach a position which would afford a competent subsistence. 
Let these conditions be reversed, to the extent that existing 
teachers have powerful inducements to make their students love 
the study of science for its own sake, with just confidence that 
they will be able to earn a livelihood if they succeed in qualify- 
ing themselves to advance science, and the whole thing is 
changed. The first batch of young investigators will be dispersed 
among schools and colleges according to their powers and ac- 
quirements, and will improve their influence upon the pupils, 
and enable them to send up a second batch better trained than 
the first. This improvement will go on increasing, if the natural 
forces which promote it are allowed free play : and the youth of 
each successive generation will have better and more fre- 
quent opportunities of awakening to a love of learning, better 
help and guidance in their efforts to acquire and use the glorious 
inheritance of knowledge which had been left them, better and 
more numerous living examples of men devoting their whole lives 
to the extension of the domain of truth, and seeking their highest 
reward in the consciousness that their exertions have benefited 
their fellow-men, and are appreciated by them. 
A young man who is duly qualified for the work of teaching 
the investigation of some particular branch of science, and who 
wishes to devote himself to it, will become a member of an asso- 
ciation of men selected for their known devotion to learning, and 
for their ability to teach the methods fof investigation in their 
respective subjects. Around this central group is ranged a fre- 
quently changing body of youths who trust to them for encourage- 
ment and guidance in their respective studies. 
Our young investigator finds it necessary to study again more 
carefully many parts of his subject, and to examine accurately 
the: evidence of various conclusions which he had formerly 
adopted, in order that he may be able to lead the minds of his 
pupils by easy and natural yet secure steps to the discovery of 
' 
the geneval truths which are within their reach. He goes over his 
branch of science again and again from the foundation upwards 
striving each time to present its essential particulars more clearly 
and more forcibly, arranging them in the order best calculated to 
stimulate an inquiring mind to reflect upon their meaning, and to 
direct its efforts effectively to the discovery of the general ideas 
which are to be derived from them, He is encouraged in these 
efforts by the sympathy of his colleagues, and often aided by 
suggestions derived from their experience in teaching other 
branches of science, or by information respecting doctrines or 
methods which throw a light upon those of his own subject. 
No known conditions are so well calculated to give a young 
investigator the closest and strongest grasp of his object of which 
he is capable as those in which he is placed while thus earnestly 
teaching it in a college ; and inasmuch as a thorough mastery of 
known truths is needed by everyone who would work to advan- 
tage at the discovery of new truths of that kind, it will, in most 
cases, be an object of ambition to the ablest young investigators 
to get an opportunity of going through the work of teaching in 
a college, in order to improve themselves to the utmost forthe 
work of original research. There is, however, another adyan- 
tage to them in having such work to do; for the best way to 
ascertain at any one time what additions may be made to a 
science, is to examine the facts which have been discovered last, 
and to consider how far they confirm and extend the established 
ideas of the science, how far they militate against those ideas. 
An investigating teacher is constantly weaving new facts into 
the body of his science, and forming anticipations of new 
truths by considering the relation of these new facts to the old 
ones. 
When our investigator has thus got a thorough mastery of his 
science and new ideas for its extension, he ought to have the 
opportunity of turning his improved powers to account by devot- 
ing more of his time to original research ; in fact he ought to 
teach research by example more than hitherto, and less by ele- 
meniary exercises upon known facts. If he has discharged the 
duties of his first post with manifest efficiency, he will be pro- 
moted, either in his own or some other cclleze, to a chair afford- 
ing more leisure and facility for original research by his own 
hands and by those of his assistants and pupils. Some investi- 
gators may find it desirable to give up after a while all teaching 
of previously published tiuths, and confine themselves to guiding 
the original researches of advanced pupils, while stimuiating them — 
by the example of their own discoveries. But mosc of them will 
probably prefer to do elementary teaching work from time to time, 
for the sake of the opportunity of going over the groundwork of 
their science, with a knowledge of the new facts and enlarged 
ideas recently established. 
Now it must be observed that such a system as the above, once 
developed to its proper proportions, so as to send aanually to 
secondary schools many thousands of poor children who would 
otherwise never enjoy such advantages, and so as to train to 
original investigation a corresponding proportion of them, would 
not only provide more young investigators than would be needed 
for systematic teaching functions, but would also give a partial 
training of the same kind to many whose abilities proved to be 
insufficient, or whose tastes were not congenial to such pursuit. 
Some would be tempted by an advantageous opening in an in- 
dustrial pursuit or in the public service to break off their studies 
before completion, and others would find, after completing their 
training, a position of that kind more desirable or more attain- 
able than a purely scientific appointment. Not only would 
much good of other kinds be accomplished by this circumstance, 
but we may say with confidence that the system could not 
work with full advantage for its own special purpose of promc~ 
ting the advancement of science if it did not diffuse a know- 
ledge of the truths and methods of science beyond the circle of 
teachers. 
There is an urgent need of accurate scientific knowledge for 
the direction of manufacturing processes, and there could not be 
a greater mistake than to suppose that such knowledge need not 
go beyond the elementary truths of science. In every branch of 
manufacture improvements are made from time to time, by the 
introduction of new or modified processes which had been dis- 
covered by means of investigations as arduous as those conducted 
for purely scientific purposes, and involving as great powers 
and accomplishments on the part of those who conducted 
them. 
Any manufacturer of the present day who does not make effi- 
cient arrangements for gradually perfecting and improving his 
te o b+ 
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