24 
NATURE 
[May 12, 1870 
ee || aEnEEane 
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 
[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 
by his Correspondents, No notice is taken of anonymous 
communications. ] 
The late Captain Brome 
A SHORT time since I announced in your columns the decease 
of Captain Fred. Brome, late of Gibraltar, and well known 
to many of your geological readers for his great and successful 
labours in the exploration of the caves and fissures of the 
Rock. Ithen stated that Captain Brome had left a widow and 
eight children, wholly unprovided for ; and this is literally the 
case. My object in this communication is to state that his 
numerous and warm friends in Gibraltar, and at Weedon where 
he died, have already commenced the collection of a fund for 
the relief and maintenance of his helpless widow and family, 
and to request that you will allow me space to say, that I shall 
be happy to receive and forward any contributions in aid of this 
fund. 
Captain Brome was for twenty-two years Governor of the 
Military Prison at Gibraltar, from which post he was displaced 
towards the end of 1868. His removal to England last year 
with his large family necessarily involved him in considerable 
expense, incurred in the hope that his new appointment at 
Weedon might afford him a home and some prospect of providing 
for his children’s education. These hopes, however, were 
destroyed in less than twelve months by the announcement that 
the prison at Weedon was to be disestablished. The anxiety lest 
he should thus be left without prospect of employment, and, as he 
feared, without any provision for the wants of his family, caused 
him such distress that, although a strong and energetic man and 
in the prime of life, he gradually sank, and died from mental 
depression on the 4th of March. 
It is impossible to conceive a case more deserving of sympathy 
and support than that of his unhappy widow and children, or 
one more deserving of recognition by all lovers of science than 
that of Captain Brome, who had gratuitously devoted several 
years of his life, and the most unwearied personal labour, simply 
because he believed, and truly believed that he was promoting a 
scientific object. 
Subscriptions will be received by me, and, I am kindly per- 
mitted to say, by Mr. W. S. Dallas, at the apartments of the 
Geological Society, Somerset House. 
32, Harley Street, May 6, Gro, Busk 
Relations of the State to Scientific Research.—II. 
ScIENTIFIC men are of three kinds: the young, the middle 
aged, and the old. It is difficult to say which needs help the 
most ; but there is one work in which they can all severally take 
part, and from which they can each obtain that comfortable 
leisure which is the one thing needful for original research, 
That work is simply the work of teaching. And here let me 
not be misunderstood, By teaching science, I do not mean the 
miserable practices now carried on, but teaching on a scale 
commensurate with the great needs of a great nation, and in a 
way calculated to bring about the blessings that follow inevitably 
on true, thorough scientific knowledge. 
To illustrate my meaning, let me take a particular science, 
chemistry, as an example. Of the whole population of England 
there will certainly be a certain number of men whose minds are 
so set on chemistry that they would be willing to accept, while 
in the prime of life, with gladness the offer of posts which, while 
taking up about half their time in teaching chemistry, would 
_enable them to devote the entire other half to original work, and 
yet bring up their families in decency and order. What the exact 
number of such men would be, I do not care to know ; it probably 
would never be very great ; it certainly would neyer exceed the 
demand for men to fill chairs of chemistry at properly organised 
laboratories established at various points all over the kingdom. 
Now a livelihood may be gained, and even a fortune made, 
by teaching, but this can never be done by working half time. 
But such a man as we are picturing must work half time only; 
and therefore the receipts from his actual teaching must be 
subsidised from elsewhere—the chair must be endowed by the 
Government, either local or imperial. 
The occupant of such a chair would not be an idler. No idler 
would seek a post which would always entail a large amount of 
labour, and never would bring wealth. At the very worst, eyen 
if he did no original work, he would earn his salary by teaching. 
If he taught badly, that is a thing which can readily be 
recognised by competent persons, and he could be dismissed. 
The very desire of a man to take such a position would be of 
itself almost a guarantee that he would perform its duties properly, 
and bring forth the fruit expected of him, And calling to mind 
the well-known law of human nature that the more work a 
man has to do, the more he over-abounds in work, we may feel 
sure that the half life which teaching leaves to such a man will 
be filled with a whole life’s exertion. 
The work of such a man would lie almost exclusively in the 
way of systematic lectures and general superintendence of the 
laboratory. I need hardly say that that ought to be a small part 
only of the total teaching done in the place. There must be 
attached to the professor two, three, or more recognised assis- 
tants, who would be always in the laboratory, who would per- 
sonally direct and nurse the students, who would carry on original 
work, partly on their own account and partly on behalf of their 
master, and who would receive a moderate fixed salary, sufficient 
to enable them to live without having to look to any other 
extraneous sources of income. Such men would of course be 
embryonic professors ; and I know of no more pressing need than 
this, of finding livelihoods for young promising men in the inter- 
val between the studentship and the professorship. I weep when 
I think of how many admirable young men become outcasts to 
science for lack of these. It has been so with myself: full of zeal 
for science in my youth, and, whatis more important, rich in the 
germs of large ideas, which I have since seen flourishing in other 
men’s minds and bringing forth fruit of fame, I could find no rest- 
ing place. I threw myself into practical money-getting life, with 
the hope that after a while my gains would provide me a com- 
fortable afternoon of old age, in which I might return to my 
former love. I now have both time and money; but, alas! 
my mind has grown stiff in the ways of the world: the old ideas 
of my youth are now vain shadows which I cannot grasp. I find 
myself a wretched puddler, full of egotistic hobbies, productive 
of little oddities and trifling curiosities, but bringing forth nothing 
of real value or permanent worth, The young men make fun of 
me, and the"chief men treat me with a courtesy which is at once 
patronizing and forced. 
What is true of chemistry is, with minor differences, true of 
the other sciences. Under such a scheme as I have pictured, 
both young and middle-aged would be provided for, With a 
sufficient number of laboratories, some large and some small, 
some with eminent, some with ‘useful men at their head, some 
with many, some with few assistants, it would come to pass that 
on the one hand the younger men would work under the bene- 
ficial influence of their chiefs,}while on the other the men full of 
thoughts would find heads and hands near them to carry out 
their ideas. Is it not a crying shame that at the present time 
such a man as Huxley is completely isolated from the younger 
biological workers, and instead of, like Cuvier, having a large 
laboratory manned by an enthusiastic body of scholars, ready to 
dissect everything after its kind, is penned up in an abominable 
den in Jermyn Street, and distracted by the demands of triflers ; 
has, in fact, to work upon the world through the bars of a prison 
cage? Is it not also a shame that one of the acknowledged fore- 
most teachers of mathematics in Europe, in the focus of our national 
life, should feel himself compelled to forsake the work of teach- 
ing for a subordinate unscientific appointment in a University, 
when his right place would have been as instructor of the rising 
mathematicians of England ? 
But besides teaching, there is the task of examining the taught. 
And here again is a source of easy livelihood. I do not mean 
such kind of examinations as are carried on at present; that 
wretched system of papers, worked through at the rate of so 
many dozen a day and paid for at so much a hundred—work 
done by steam and ending in smoke. I mean a thorough system 
of practical examinations, carried on slowly and quietly, by a 
staff of professors and their assistants, and paid for in respect of 
the immense contingencies that hang upon the result and of the 
vast responsibilities of the examiners. I haye not space to dwell 
on this; but it is a point which wants working out thoroughly 
and well. The task of examining ought to be one of the richest 
sources of income to a large number of scientific men, instead as 
now the odd pence of a few. 
I maintain, then, that teaching and examining combined would 
support all the young and middle-aged scientific men in this 
country that have sound reasons for devoting themselves to a 
scientific life, and support them honourably and productively. | 
