June 6, 1872 



NATURE 



103 



except in apparent contradiction to the principles of Free 

 Trade. 



'' Tliat the foundation by the late John Owens of Pro- 

 fessorships of Arts and Sciences in the midst of this great 

 city was not thought by Cobden to be subversive of his 

 principles is proved by the fact that he himself was one of 

 the original trustees, yet this conclusion does not appear 

 equally clear to all of liis disciples. 



" We are, in sober truth, utterly at a loss to conceive 

 how the higher education of the country can be efficiently 

 carried on without a moderate endowment of its Profes- 

 sorships. The necessity for such an education you your- 

 self admit. 



" A single example from our own staff, which, more or 

 less, applies to other places and subjects, will render our 

 argument clear. It is evidently of very great importance 

 that in a place like Manchester the citizens should be 

 taught by a master mind the principles of political economy, 

 and they have been fortunate in being able to avail them- 

 selves of the services of such a man as our colleague. 

 Professor Jevons. But, although here both elements of 

 pecuniary success might appear to be present in an intelli- 

 gent public and a first-rate teacher, the fact remains that 

 without the (misguided !) endowment of our founder the 

 few who attend his lectures could not have benefited from 

 the teaching of Professor Jevons unless the fees of attend- 

 ance had been enormously increased. Indeed, we question 

 whether the great apostle of Free Trade himself would 

 have ultimately met with success had he not first of all 

 received some sort of protection and support, 



" We are naturally led by the instance we have quoted 

 to remark that endowments really tend to diminish the 

 expenses of education, and, looking around us, we s;e that 

 in University College and King's College (London), where 

 there are no endowments, they cannot afford to give their 

 education at so low a figure as is possible at O wens College 

 and in the Scotch Colleges, where endo,vments exist. 



" In the German LIni\'ersities, again, where all the im- 

 portant Chairs are well endowed, the expenses of education 

 are almost nominal. In Scotland the education is in some 

 branches of a very high standard, and in others great im- 

 provements have recently taken place, chiefly in the direc- 

 tion of relieving the head Professors from the duty of 

 teaching junior classes which pay, and of enabling them 

 to devote their energies to senior classes which do not pay. 

 Such, in Scotland, have been the effects of endowments. 

 Again, with regard to Gemiany, we have never heard any 

 complaints made of the inefficiency of the German Pro- 

 fessors. 



" We must candidly own that we were much surprised 

 by your statement as to the advisability of simply founding 

 Scholarships and Exhibitions, coming, as it does, from a 

 distinguished Oxford man well acquainted with the present 

 state of feeling in the older Universities. Is it not true 

 that this feeling is strongly against the extension of the 

 already too numerous Scholarships, Fellowships, and other 

 incitements to study, and in favour of the application of 

 these funds to increase the paltry salaries of the Pro- 

 fessors ? 



" The excessive endowment of .Scholarships appears to 

 us to be objectionable, as an instance of unnecessary pro- 

 tection, where, by means of a hotbed regimen, young men 

 are induced to enter a profession for which there is no 

 subsequent career. 



'■ While we admit that in a perfect state of society (un- 

 happily still far distant) the laws of supply and demand 

 may perhaps be applicable to all knowledge, yet we must 

 point out that the teachers of the higher branches have 

 too often now to create a taste for the commodity which 

 they supply, and hence we believe that the moderate en- 

 dowment of Professorships, such as exists in our own case, 

 is essential to the progress of civilisation in this country. 



" In conclusion, Sir, we cannot understand why en- 

 dowment naturally tends to make teaching inefficient in 



the case of a Professor of science or arts more than it does 

 in that of a minister of religion or a statesman. 



"Are they not all servants of the nation administering 

 to its higher needs ? The teacher of science or of the arts 

 will, we venture to say, be no less conscientious and faith- 

 ful to the true interests of a noble cause in teaching his 

 class than the minister of religion in addressing his con- 

 gregation, or the Minister of State in addressing his con- 

 stituents. 



"We are, Sir, your obedient servants, 



" Henry E. Roscoe, B.A. (Lond.) F.R.S. 



"B.\LFOUR Stewart, LL.D., F.R.S." 



" II, Downing Street, Whitehall, May 23, 1872 

 " Gentlemen, — The speech which I made at the annual 

 meeting of the London University occupied three-quarters 

 of an hour, and was reported in a few lines. I never al- 

 luded to Professors, but spoke only of teachers, meaning 

 those who do the drudgery or hard work of teaching, not 

 those who are devoted to the investigation and inculcation 

 of higher and more refined knowledge. I have the 

 greatest respect for Mr. Jevons, and do not doubt that 

 the endowment of his Chair is money well laid out. 



" I also agree — indeed, I said — that the endowment 

 both of Fellowships and Scholarships at Oxford and Cam- 

 bridge is excessive ; but I pointed out how hard the com- 

 petition was for the London LIniversity, with strict 

 examinations and hardly any endowment, against O.xford 

 and Cambridge, with rich endowments and easy examina- 

 tions. I added that in my judgment money was better 

 spent in giving Exhibitions to young men, leaving them 

 free to choose the place of their education, than in paying 

 persons to teach them ; since in the one case the induce- 

 ment to the teacher to work was diminished, while in the 

 other the student with money in his hand was sure to find 

 the best teacher for himself. 



'• I am, Gentlemen, your obedient servant, 



" Robert Lowe. 

 " I am an older Freetrader than Mr. Cobden, and am 

 by no means prepared to assent to his views in all re- 

 spects." 



GLAISHER'S {HALL'S IMPROVED) RAIN 



GAUGE* 



T N the first paragraph of my " Notes on the Rainfall 

 -•■ of 1 87 1,'' which recently appeared in Nature (vol. 

 v., p. 4S1) your readers will probably have noticed certain 

 reference to the above. 



The improvement to which I refer consists of an in- 

 vertcd yiiii (similar to the rim or flange in which the re- 

 ceiver stands) fixed to the outside cylinder of the receiver, 

 and made sufficiently large to admit of its dropping over 

 the rim or flange, sometimes called " channel," fixed to the 

 lower cylinder, iciest, the one just mentioned in parenthesis. 

 The iiivcricd rim is shown by a thick line on the right 

 of the accompanying half-sectional diagram. 



The reason that I suggested this addition was, that 

 on one occasion, v/hile registering the daily rainfall at 

 Twickenham, during the winter of 1 869-70, I was unable 

 to take the receiver off, owing to the already existing 

 channel being partly filled with water, which had frozen 

 hard during the night, t 



It is intended that water should be collected in the 

 flange (Glaisher's) I have spoken of, and thus close the 

 gauge against evaporation, scarcely a good idea theo- 

 retically, certainly not practically, inasmuch as the water 



* Vide Scienti/cc Opinion, vol. iii. pp. 449, 450. 



+ In order to avoid the interference of houses and trees, my gauge was 

 supported at this time on a bracket carriage, running in vertical slides from 

 a staircase window to a point a few feet above the roof of my residence. 



