JANUARY II, 1917] 
NATURE 
371 
may be taken as indicating a politic submission 
to the force of that part of public opinion which 
is against them. An example occurred at the 
meeting of the Hellenic Society on November 14, 
Dr. Walter Leaf, president, being in the chair. 
The president opened the proceedings with 
some remarks about compulsory Greek in the 
entrance examinations at Oxford and Cambridge 
for which he would receive the cordial thanks of 
any friends of physical science who may have 
listened to him. As he justly pointed out, the 
study of Greek must stand or fall on its own 
merits, and he denounced the retention of Greek 
-as a compulsory subject in terms as vigorous as 
could be desired both by those who care nothing 
for classical learning and by those who have the 
interests of Hellenic studies at heart. For there 
can be no doubt that the number of young people 
who enjoy the gifts which enable them to push 
on beyond the difficulties of the language itself, 
so as to be in a position to imbibe and to enjoy 
something of the beauty of Greek poetry, drama, 
and philosophy, is, and must always remain, rela- 
tively small; while the forcing of hundreds of 
young men to undergo the drudgery of getting 
up an imperfect knowledge of Greek grammar and 
some small portion of a Greek author is deliber- 
ately to create a crowd of people who in after life 
hate and despise the system which has compelled 
them to waste so much time. 
Dr. Leaf made a mistake in his reference to 
what he described as the present tendency to 
exalt materialistic science. Everyone knows that 
the circumstances of the time compel a concen- 
tration of attention on inventions which have arisen 
out of scientific discovery, and to the unthinking 
the production of dyes and explosives, of big guns 
and aeroplanes, may appear to be the chief aim 
and purpose of scientific research. But this is 
not all that science has to offer, nor is it the pur- 
pose towards which instruction in scientific prin- 
ciples, methods, and results as an element in a 
liberal education should be directed. Such pro- 
ducts of scientific activity belong mainly to the 
technical school and the workshop, and though a 
good deal of illumination for the mind may be 
derived from a study of such things, the primary | 
purpose in the use of physical science in educa- 
tion is in training the powers of observation, the 
application of the inductive method to the results 
and the acquisition of such a knowledge of the 
external world as is necessary to the intellectual 
life of the modern civilised man. Surely no man 
brought up under the classical system at school 
and university can pretend that he is indifferent 
to the discoveries in electricity, chemistry, and 
biology in the last half-century. Present know- 
ledge about the constitution of the chemical 
elements and the application of the principles of 
evolution have so changed all ideas about the 
world in which we live and the nature of man 
himself that such changes can be ignored by no 
one who claims to be called an educated man. 
It may be asked whether it would not be an 
advantage even to the classical scholar that he 
NO. 2463, VOL. 98] 
| the 
should be in a position not only to learn from the 
newspapers that discoveries have been made, but 
also to understand something of the nature of the 
evidence on which they are assumed to be estab- 
lished. It appears, however, that there are people 
who still think otherwise, and, as governors of 
schools and universities or Civil Service Commis- 
sioners, do not hesitate to place all kinds of 
obstacles in the way of the new learning and to 
draw or drive away from the fields of science 
many of the best brains in the country. Protests 
have already been raised over and over again at 
meetings of the British Association, at the British 
Science Guild, in addresses by presidents of the 
Royal Society, and at the gathering organised by 
the Neglect of Science Committee in May last. 
A fresh and vigorous denunciation of this kind 
of obstruction was uttered by Prof. Soddy in 
November last at a meeting of the Univer- 
sity Scientific Society at Aberdeen. His 
subject was “The Future of Science and What 
Bars the Way,” and he began by addressing 
himself to the consideration of the latter ques- 
tion because he believes that active opposition 
has still to be overcome before science can take 
its rightful place in the Scottish universities. He 
repeats with emphasis what has been asserted 
already often enough, namely, that some of the 
older institutions have lost’ whatever capacity they 
may once have had for intellectual leadership, and 
by the inherent qualities of their system they 
perpetuate a type of man. who is out of. harmony 
with the present age, who remains in a world of 
medieval obscurantism, and is an obstacle in the 
way of future national reconstruction. A claim 
is set up for the older studies to. an elevating 
spiritual influence which the present. state of the 
world shows to have failed. In the meantime 
science has put at the disposal of man physical 
powers which, in the: hands of the barbarian 
uninfluenced by the humanist, threaten .to wreck 
the world. 
The conservatism and exclusiveness of which 
Prof. Soddy complains are not confined to the 
Scottish universities. They pervade the schools 
throughout the kingdom, dominated as most of 
them are by the classical stronghold of Oxford; 
and in the public service of the country the states- 
man, the headmaster, and the divine remain 
_ largely blind and deaf to the signs and warnings 
of the time. They claim not merely to preserve a 
sanctuary for the memory of departed glories, but 
their decadent humanism continues to monopolise 
avenues to preferment, to positions of 
influence, opportunity, and honour. 
But what will be likely in the address to attract 
most attention in Aberdeen, and perhaps else- 
where, is the charge which is brought against the 
University Court of financial jugglery to the dis- 
advantage of science and medicine. Mr. Car- 
negie in 190r gave two millions sterling to the 
Scottish universities for the purposes of scientific 
study and research as well as payment of the fees 
of deserving students. Prof. Soddy asserts that 
owing to the form in which the accounts are pub- 
/ 
