OcTOBER g, 1902] 
NATURE 
591 
toil. To provide relief and healthy occupation for leisure hours, 
and to secure that vacuity of mind and pettiness of motive shall 
no longer be the sore afiliction they now are, we must take all 
the requirements into consideration and define with utmost 
minuteness the task in hand; broader and higher ideals than 
those now prevailing must be established and practical require- 
ments must be met. To secure the right attitude of mind for 
this task will not be easy. Few realise, few know, how signal 
is our failure to appreciate our power, how deplorably we neglect 
our opportunities. The bareness of the fare we provide is 
nothing less than shameful in view of the rich possibilities which 
lie ready to hand. In saying that 
2 A primrose by a river's brim, 
A yellow primrose was to him 
And it was nothing more, 
the poet has well pictured our average attitude towards our 
surroundings. To the majority, indeed, a primrose is scarcely a 
primrose; it isunseen. It is little short of impossible to account 
for our callous disregard of the wondrous beauty of the multi- 
tudinous objects displayed in Nature’s realm, our willingness to 
remain ignorant of the meaning of the mysterious changes which 
are ever happening before our eyes. That familiarity should 
breed such contempt is passing strange ; but how great the guilt 
in these days of those who allow the contempt to grow up, know- 
ing as they must that the ignorance is easy to dispel, knowing 
also that those versed in the mysteries have ever sought to lay 
bare all that is within theirken. The failure on the part of those 
who have the charge of education to make a scientific use of the 
imagination is nothing short of complete; there is nothing to 
show that the imagination is ever called into play. 
Surely it were time to make some real effort to imbue all with 
a proper understanding of their surroundings, to create in all 
minds a higher and reverent interest in life. 
It isa sad reflection and a grievous blot on our civilisation 
that our spiritual advisers are mostly so little regardful, so 
destitute of understanding, of the works of that Omnipotent 
Power which all must recognise and humbly submit to, whether 
or no allegiance be acknowledged in doctrinal terms ; they 
before all others should be prepared to consider their inmost 
meaning and to direct attention to their wondrous mechanism. 
We indeed need to send forth a new mission charged with the 
holy duty of enabling man to appreciate and acknowledge the 
beauty of the universe, as well as of preparing him to bea 
thoroughly effective worker, thus fitting him for the true, un- 
selfish and reverent enjoyment of life. To use the apt words of 
the Master, quoted by the Poet at the Breakfast-table: ‘If for 
the Fall of man, science comes to substitute the Rise of man, it 
means the utter disintegration of all the spiritual pessimisms 
which have been like a spasm in the heart and a cramp in the 
intellect of men for so many centuries.” 
Tf we can but make sweet use of our present adversity, though 
we may not be exempt from public haunt but live even in 
crowded cities, we shall unquestionably soon find 
. tongues in trees, books in the babbling brooks, 
Sermons in stones and good tx every thing. 
The wonderful prescience of our great poet is nowhere more 
clearly displayed than in these lines, and it is more than sur- 
prising that although generations have been charmed by the 
music of the words, so little has been done to realise their 
meaning or to give them a meaning in the minds of the 
majority. 
It is but a question of attitude, for, as Carlyle somewhere 
says, “so soon as men get to discern the importance of a thing 
they do infallibly set about arranging it, facilitating it, for- 
warding it, and rest not till in some approximate degree they 
have accomplished that.” 
Unfortunately, there are all too many things of which we fail, 
through our faulty education, to discern the importance, but 
which a little understanding, the exercise of some slight 
imaginative power, would enable us to appreciate. I will take 
the word Avergy as an example. No word in the English 
language carries more meaning to those versed in the principles 
of physical science, and yet how narrow its connotation in the 
minds of the uninstructed majority. As a guide of practical 
conduct, no word is of greater significance, and if its true im- 
plication fully seized us the word would ever rankle in our ears 
and serve to remind us of the maxim ‘‘ Waste not, want not.” 
In Great Britain we are using up our coal stores at the rate of 
over two hundred millions of tons per annum. Used at such a 
rate, the supply cannot last many generations ; whence will our 
NO. 1719, VOL. 66] 
children derive their supplies of energy? Energy cannot be 
created. When we have squandered the wealth funded on our 
earth by the sun in zeons past, we must fall back on the modicum 
we can snatch from the daily allowance the glowing orb dis- 
penses, for his largess will for the most part be wasted and will 
be very difficult to garner in our country, sun mills, wind mills 
and falling water being but irregular and ill-disciplined ser- 
vants, trees growing but slowly. In all civilised countries the 
same criminal waste of fuel—of energy—is going on; but 
although we recognise that individual men have no right to live 
beyond their means and have little pity for bankrupts, no cor- 
responding feeling exists on the subject of collective squan- 
dering. The spendthrift is regarded with equanimity, because he 
but distributes his gold among the many—so that the many gain 
while he alone is the loser—but the energy of fuel is spent irre- 
coverably, and all waste is not merely apparent, but real. To 
waste fuel is to court criminal bankruptcy ; but to how many 
does it occur that we are all parties to such a crime? Does any 
schoolmaster or schoolmistress call attention to the fact? How 
many heads of schools could even write a respectable essay on 
such a topic? When I have suggested S‘ A piece of coal” as 
the subject for a scholarship examination essay, I have actually 
been told by literary critics that you have no right to ask for 
knowledge of facts in a schoolboy’s essay, the object being but 
to find out to what extent he can ‘‘gas’’ in flowing periods ! 
A scuttle full of coal excites no emotions in the literary mind ; 
it should be one to call up harrowing visions, as well as a 
vista of memories extending far back into the ages of time, 
for in no other stone can we find a more wonderful sermon. 
To descend to the ordinary level, how many householders 
ever take into consideration the wicked waste of fuel which goes 
on in their establishments ? how many are really thrifty in the 
use of fuel? I never see a ‘‘ Kitchener,” or hear it roar, but I 
shudder. The prevention of smoke is of no consequence in 
comparison with the prevention of the waste of fuel. Even when 
every care is taken the waste is very great—simply because our 
means of utilising the energy of fuel are so imperfect. The 
best steam engine can recover for us but very few per cent. of 
the energy stored up in the coal which is burnt in its boiler fire. 
If we could succeed in burning fuel electrically—in directly 
converting the latent energy into electricity—it is conceivable 
that the engine might be of nearly theoretical efficiency. But 
what imaginative power must be exercised to secure such a 
result ! Cannot we in some measure hasten the time of such 
discovery ? Prof. Perry not long ago had the temerity to direct 
attention anew to the subject in NATURE, and made what many 
practical people will consider the impossible suggestion of a 
wildly imaginative, irresponsible Irishman—that a round million 
or so should be devoted to systematic experiments, with the 
object of discovering means of increasing the efficiency of our 
engines. If we consider what is the cost of a modern battle- 
ship ; if we consider what has been spent on the war in South 
Africa ; if we consider the extent to which the value of the fuel 
at our disposal would be increased if we could only double the 
efficiency of our engines and of our stoves, Prof. Perry’s pro- 
posal cannot be regarded as otherwise than modest and sensible. 
But what is of real importance is the implied suggestion that the 
subject should be seriously inquired into at national expense. 
It must, and at no distant date, be admitted that our fuel 
stores are national assets over which there should be some 
national control. 
I may take Food as another subject of which we fail to discern 
the importance, and which is outside the schoolmaster’s ken, 
although teachers have stomachs as well as other men, and boys 
in particular are believed to take some interest in the existence 
of that organ. It is but a variant on that of energy, as the food 
we take is mainly of value as the source of the energy we expend 
—as fuel, comparatively little being required for the construc- 
tion and repair of the bodily machinery. 
. . . God has made 
This world a strife of atoms and of spheres ; 
With every breathrI sigh myself away 
And take my tribute from the wandering wind 
To fan the flame of life’s consuming fire. 
Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
How many will appreciate this pregnant passage ; in how many 
schools is instruction given which would make it possible to 
recognise its beauty and completeness as a statement of the 
philosophy of the respiratory process? Our ignorance of our- 
selves and of the functions of food is indeed phenomenal. Life 
involves the unceasing occurrence of a series of changes for the 
