NATURE 



217 



THURSDAY, JANUARY 6, 18S7 



SCIENCE AND THE JUBILEE 



THE year of Jubilee has come, and on all sides we 

 hear of proposals to make it memorable in one way 

 or another. It is- right that the completion of fifty years 

 of such a glorious reign as that of the present Queen 

 should be celebrated by all kinds of noble effort, and the 

 more the future greater well-being of the Queen's subjects 

 is considered in those efforts, the more lasting such 

 memorials will prove. But, so far, the word Science has 

 scarcely been mentioned either in summing up the pro- 

 gress of the nation during the last fifty years, or in 

 considering how science should have its place among the 

 memorials by which this year is to be marked out from 

 among its fellows. 



This is not encouraging ; still less encouraging is it that 

 at the beginning of such a year the progress of science in 

 this country finds itself jeopardised in a serious manner. 

 According to rumour part of Lord Randolph Churchill's 

 famous " plan " was to increase his reputation not only by 

 crippling our national defences but by paralysing all those 

 efforts to spread science broadcast in our land for which the 

 Science and Art Department and other kindred organisa- 

 tions, such as the British Museum, are responsible. To 

 effect any large economy in this direction science schools 

 must have been swept away, science classes crippled, 

 science scholarships abolished, and science museums cast 

 into the limbo of ineffectiveness. 



Truly the politician's trade is a curious one ; for, sup- 

 posing the rumour to be well founded, and that all 

 these things had been proposed, what then ? In a 

 week the common-sense of the country would have found 

 out that the Government which could sanction such mea- 

 sures was out of touch with all true progress. But sup- 

 pose, further, that they were permitted to be carried out ; 

 we should just be where we were fifty years ago in many 

 things which by common consent lie at the root of all 

 true national progress. It is lamentable, indeed, that even 

 yet the Philistine is so rampant among us, and that those 

 to whom the nation looks for good government and light 

 and leading know so little about our actual needs. 



Indeed, it must be frankly conceded that in these 

 matters our nation is fifty years behind others. Nay, 

 more : we must possess our souls in patience for yet 

 another fifty years : for not till then, as things go, it is to 

 be feared, will the average politician know the role which 

 science plays in modern progress, and the stern necessity 

 there is, if we are to hold our own among the nations, that 

 scientific instruction must be enormously extended. 



Turning now toanother matter which is engaging much 

 attention in connection with this memorable year, we 

 must confess to a feeling of disappointment in connection 

 with the proposals for an Imperial Institute which we 

 printed last week (p. 210). The Committee who drew up 

 the Report, on which, no doubt, action will soon be taken, 

 have undoubtedly avoided many errors into which they 

 would have fallen had they followed much of the advice 

 which has so freely been tendered to them ; but we think 

 that they have missed their mark in great measure, for 

 the reason that the Committee too much resembles the 

 Vol. XXXV. — No. 897 



play of " Hamlet," with the Prince of Denmark omitted. 

 It did not please the Prince of Wales to nominate any 

 official representative of science upon it. We do not 

 forget that the Committee had the advantage of numbering 

 Sir Lyon Playfair among its members, but he was not 

 there as an official representative of science, and, had he 

 been, such representation would have been numerically 

 insufficient. As it is, it is not difficult to surmise that 

 many of the best suggestions contained in the scheme are 

 his, and this makes us regret the more that he was there 

 single-handed. 



In our view, there is room for an Imperial Institute 

 which might without difficulty be made one of the 

 glories of the land, and which would do more for the 

 federation of England and her colonies than almost any 

 other machinery that it is possible to imagine. But it must 

 be almost exclusively a scientific institution. Its watch- 

 words should be " Knowledge and Welcome." England, 

 through such an institution, should help her colonies 

 in the arts of peace, as she does at present exclusively 

 in the arts of war. In an Imperial Institute we can 

 imagine the topography, the geology, the botany, and 

 the various applications of science and the industries of 

 Greater Britain going hand in hand. 



This year is not only the 50th anniversary of the Queen's 

 accession, but it is the Sooth anniversary of Domesday 

 Book. Let the Imperial Institute be the head-quarters of 

 a bigger Domesday Book ; let all knowledge be there 

 accumulated concerning the growth of England's children 

 during the last 800 years ; let the knowledge be complete, 

 and so arranged that what comes from each quarter shall 

 throw light on all. Those who know how matters stand 

 best, will see that in the case of many of our colonies this 

 knowledgedoesnot exist; then let it be the proud duty of the 

 Imperial Institute to get it. We have colonies in which are 

 large stretches of country teeming with mineral and botan- 

 ical wealth where no surveyor, or botanist, or geologist 

 has ever trod. Let the Imperial Institute bring about the 

 arrangements by which they may be sent ; we have men 

 engaged upon all these works at home. We can imagine 

 no greater service rendered to the science of this country 

 than that those engaged upon its various surveys should 

 enlarge their experience by that " travel, travel, travel " 

 upon which Sir Charles Lyell insisted. The presence of 

 such men for a few months in those colonies where surveys 

 have not already been established would be of inestimable 

 advantage on both sides ; and if the system were at work 

 for a few years it would be found that there is no more 

 necessity for a colony, unless it prefers to do so, to esta- 

 blish the whole mechanism of a Geological Survey and a 

 Topographical Survey for itself than there is for it to 

 establish an Admiralty or a War Office. 



We would by no means limit this scientific outlook to 

 surveys merely. Take the present condition of Barbados 

 as a case in point. Barbados must either start some new 

 industry or she must starve. This new industry must 

 depend upon new knowledge. We take no steps to help 

 Barbados with our brain power, as if it was not our 

 concern ; but if Bridgetown were under the guns of a 

 foreio"n fleet, the whole money and muscle power of the 

 Empire would, if necessary, be at her disposal. 



We have said enough to indicate the general direction in 

 which we believe the Imperial Institute can do the noblest 



