NATURE 



{Nov. 5, 1874 



appears sound in principle, is found in practice an 

 insuperable obstacle. It may here be noticed that the 

 revised statutes of Balliol, to which College the outside 

 world is wont to look as the leader in all reform, ordain 

 that all Fellowships shall be filled up after examination, 

 except only in the case of University Professors, or 

 persons eminently qualified to be college tutors. It does 

 not appear from the Report of the Commission that the 

 Cambridge Colleges have yet taken any steps to appro- 

 priate definitely any portion of their endowments to the 

 encouragement of scientific research ; but it is a matter 

 of common notoriety that at the October election to Fellow- 

 ships at Trinity College, a candidate was successful whose 

 chief qualification was that he had already accomplished 

 good original work in embryological investigation ; and 

 Cambridge men may therefore boast that this one fact is 

 worth all the schemes of the sister University. Both Oxford 

 and Cambridge, however, will have to do much more 

 than they have yet attempted, or than most of their 

 members would appear to have yet conceived, before they 

 can satisfy the public wants and justify the retention of 

 their wealth as it now stands disclosed. 



In other respects also we are glad to observe that the 

 objectors to the endowment of research are growing less 

 numerous and less violent, and that the details of a 

 scheme by which this object may be furthered are be- 

 coming more acceptable to the general public. The 

 question was brought into prominence by an article in 

 the last number of the FortnighHy Review, and the 

 writer of that article has not been slow to strengthen his 

 positions and answer all opponents in the daily and the 

 weekly press. We must confess that we have been 

 fairly surprised to see with what general acceptance his 

 thoroughgoing views have been met, and they merely 

 require the approval of persons eminent in their particular 

 sciences in order that they may carry conviction to all 

 impartial minds. The evening organ of the Conser- 

 vative party concludes a notice of them with the follow- 

 ing judicious sentence, which could not have been written 

 a bare twelvemonth ago : — " The general principle of the 

 need of some sort of endowment for science is generally 

 admitted, and in the main features of the scheme there is 

 much to recommend it to a prudent public." The renaain- 

 ing evening papers, which have all called attention to the 

 scheme, are, if not so laudatory, at least critical rather than 

 hostile ; for the time seems to have passed when the matter 

 can be thought deserving of being laughed down with a 

 sneer. We feel bound to refer more particularly to a letter 

 contained in the Spectator of October 24, written by the 

 gentleman referred to above, and entitled, " A Draft 

 Scheme for Endowing Research." The intention of the 

 letter is to show that it is practicable, by means of a 

 judicious application of precarious salaries, to train up a 

 class of scientific investigators, and that it is a safe invest- 

 ment to give endowments to young men before they have 

 reached eminence in their studies. This point deserves 

 the more attention because it appears to be now 

 widely granted that sinecure posts ought to be pro- 

 vided for men of science who are already famous 

 for their discoveries, and for this latter object the 

 Colleges have at present sufficient power, if only the 

 will also were there. The essence of this draft scliemc 

 is to be found in the principle, at once comprehensive and 



simple, that no candidate is to establish his claim to a 

 permanent endowment until he has previously served an 

 apprenticeship of some ten years, during which period he 

 must furnish continual proofs of his aptitude and diligence, 

 and will receive regular payment by results amounting to 

 a continuous salary if his work is satisfactory. The can- 

 didates would be originally selected on the nomination of 

 the professor under whom they have studied, tempered 

 by a moderate examination to exclude manifest incom- 

 petence ; and during their long period of probation they 

 will be continually liable to rejection, if it be found by the 

 board to which this duty is entrusted that they are not 

 worth the money they are receiving. This plan, no doubt, 

 is well worthy of trial at a central University, where the 

 prolonged course of study under the superintendence of 

 professors naturally lends itself to its adoption, and it 

 could scarcely be perverted to greater wastefulness than 

 at present characterises the Fellowship system at Oxford 

 and Cambridge. It may, however, be plausibly suggested 

 that something less elaborate in system and more closely 

 adapted to the wants of specific studies would be required 

 in the pecuniary encouragement of research which it is 

 the duty of the nation, independently of the Universities, 

 to undertake. 



GRESHAM COLLEGE 



IN the previous article we speak of the advancement of 

 of scientific research, and here we wish to refer to an 

 excellent article in Monday's Daily News connected with 

 the advancement of education. The misuse and idle- 

 ness of the untold wealth of the London City Companies 

 we have frequently referred to ; but until the Daily News 

 unearthed the facts contained in its article, few people 

 were aware of the existence of an institution which is 

 one of the most striking anachronisms of our time, and the 

 uselessness of whose endowments is provoking, now that 

 the importance of scientific education to all classes is 

 beginning to be keenly felt, and when its progress is so 

 much hampered by want of means. The writer in the 

 Daily Nnvs deserves the greatest credit for the trouble 

 he must have put himself to in obtaining the facts about 

 the institution known as " Gresham College," and for 

 the uncompromising way in which he has stated the facts 

 of the case. It is indeed a hopeful sign of the recognised 

 importance of sound scientific teaching, when the daily 

 press espouses its cause so heartily. 



The Daily News article begins by referring to the 

 admirable system of lectures to working men during the 

 winter at South Kensington in connection with the School 

 of Mines, and which are so popular that many are shut 

 out from want of room in the lecture theatre. Each Pro- 

 fessor now gives a course of six lectures in alternate years, 

 an average of twenty-four lectures being thus given in the 

 course of the year, in the plainest Enghsh, by Professors 

 of the first rank, for the nominal fee of one penny per lec- 

 ture. " More thronged, more silent, or more attentive 

 audiences," to quote the Daily News article, " than those 

 which attend these lectures to working m.en it would be 

 impossible to find, even in the halls of the most learned 

 of learned societies." This, combined with the results of 

 some of the examinations in the Science and Art Depart- 

 ment, seems to us to prove the readiness and eagerness 



