NATURE 279 
THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 1870 
GOVERNMENT AID TO SCIENCE 
ay our present issue will be found a letter from Mr. 
Wallace on Science Reform, a subject which we lately 
brought before our readers, and which is attracting, at last, 
the attention which its immense importance demands. 
We have the greatest respect for Mr. Wallace, and 
therefore willingly give him the opportunity of stating his 
views, though we entirely dissent from them, and though 
we regret to see such a question as this dealt with in what 
we must describe as a narrow spirit calculated to win only 
popular approval. Mr. Wallace’s letter opens with a 
denunciation of the Education movement as a madness of 
the public mind, and with an imputation upon the Science 
Reform movementas a scramble for the loaves and fishes, 
It is only consistent with such an exordium that the 
benefits of Science should be depreciated, and that its 
cultivation should be spoken of as a matter more of 
personal than of national concern. 
- “The broad principle I go upon,” says Mr. Wallace, “is 
this—that the State has no moral right to apply funds 
raised by the taxation of all its members to any purpose 
which is not available for the benefit of all.” And further 
on he writes: “I maintain that all schools of art, or of 
science, or for technical education, should be supported 
by the parties who are directly interested in them or 
benefited by them.” We understand Mr. Wallace to 
mean by these and many similar passages, that the main 
result of cultivating Science is merely the gratification of 
those directly engaged in the pursuit, and that they who do 
not take this personal interest in it derive little or no 
benefit from it ; and hence, that it would be unjust to tax 
the bulk of the community to enable a few individuals to 
indulge their philosophical tastes. If that is not the 
position which Mr. Wallace desires to take up, we must 
declare our inability to understand the letter before us ; 
if the position be tenable, we need hardly say that no 
greater error can be committed than that of seeking aid 
to Science from the State. : 
But is it tenable fora moment? Is it really necessary 
to tell any educated man of the nineteenth century that 
science, art, literature, with one or two other matters, are 
simply civilisation; and that civilisation affects, not 
particular classes, but whole communities? To confine 
ourselves to our own province, Science, does Mr. Wallace 
really believe that the discoveries of chemists, naturalists, 
astronomers, and physicists do not directly benefit even 
the ignorant masses who cannot appreciate them? Does 
he know of a single class, we might say a single tax- 
paying being in England, who does not derive direct 
advantages from contrivances and processes which place 
at his disposal properties of matter and laws of nature 
unknown to uncivilised people? The material results of 
scientific labour, such as superior clothing and dwellings, 
more varied food, better medical and surgical appliances, 
sanitary improvements, easier locomotion, are accessible 
to all in proportion to their means, however ignorant they 
may be of the scientific principles to which they are 
indebted for them,—as accessible to them as to the very 
philosophers by whom those principles were discovered 
and applied. Where, then, is the injustice of taxing all 
classes, in proportion to their means of commanding the 
results of science, for advantages which, if not so taxed, 
they would obviously gain at the cost of others? We 
are surprised to find it necessary to insist on truths of so 
elementary a character. 
Justice to the taxpayer may be a good electioneering 
cry, but in sucha discussion as the present it will com- 
mand no hearing. The question for us to consider is 
whether the taxpayer shall possess greater material advan- 
tages than those he now enjoys, and by what agency they 
| may be most efficiently conferred on him: whether, as a 
nation, we shall strive for a still higher civilisation, and 
how it is to be attained: whether these objects will come 
to us unsought, or whether, as a nation, we must exert 
ourselves vigorously and systematically to gain them. 
The resulting benefit to the taxpayer will, we need not 
doubt, far exczed the price he pays for it. 
At present, the British taxpayer contributes to the 
maintenance of a Royal Observatory, of a School of 
Mines, of a Museum of Natural History, of a Museum of 
Art, of an Ordnance Survey. The advocates of the s/atis 
guo are bound to show, not merely that catalogues of 
stars, collections of minerals, animals, statues, mosaics 
and paintings, and elaborate maps of the kingdom are 
useful to the taxpayer, but that no other institutions can 
be added to these with advantage to him, and that those 
we have named have attained to absolute completeness 
and perfection, admitting of no further development or 
improvement. The existence of these institutions settles, 
once for all, the principle that it is just to tax the com- 
munity for Science. If not, abolish them. But if taxation 
for these particular objects be just—which even Mr. 
Wallace does not deny—then the question whether there 
are not other objects that should be added to them is one 
that may fairly be asked. 
The examination of this question involves the passing 
in review of all existing, and all possible, scientific institu- 
tions, in order to select those which are properly matters 
of national concern ; the principle of selection being that 
the nation should charge itself with those only which 
have the two-fold character of general utility and of being 
beyond the means of individuals to maintain ; it also 
involves the consideration of the mode in which the 
scientific affairs of the nation should be administered. 
A recent article in the Pall Mall Gazette powerfully 
exposes the failure of local, as contrasted with central, 
administration. The principles so ably contended for by 
our contemporary are perfectly applicable to the business 
of science. The time indeed is gone by for declamation 
against centralisation. The bugbear of the past has 
become the necessity of the present. Armies, fleets, 
railroads, telegraphs, commerce, literature, enterprise in 
every form, even well-ordered private households, as 
pointed out in the article to which we refer, are all exam- 
ples of centralisation—and the tendency is daily to add to 
the catalogue. It might have been better that each man 
should suffice for himself, but as a matter of fact he does 
not. He relies on co-operation for the attainment of 
objects which he cannot compass alone, and however 
small the number who so unite for a common purpose, 
one usually directs the operations. What is true of indi- 
viduals is true of a nation. Nothing that concerns the 
well-being of the community can be, or is, left to the 
