326 
NATURE 
i May, 20, 1915 

by giving encouragement to students of science. ‘That 
is important, but it is not all. I asked a question in 
this House about the pay of students of chemistry. 
I find that the War Office itself, which is advertising 
for students of chemistry, some of them men with 
degrees, all of them required to do analytical work 
of a really very difficult kind, such as, after a man 
obtains his degree in chemistry, would require some 
special training for at least six months to do the 
work with the requisite degree of fineness, offered to 
these men a salary of—1oool.? There would be nothing 
preposterous in that. Some of these men are quite 
qualified to become professors in the great capitals 
in the Dominions. Was it 5ool.? It was tool. With 
what conditions attached? Those men_ technically 
were placed on the same footing as ordinary work- 
men, and they could have been required, had the 
regulation been enforced, to join in a queue every 
Saturday to take their 2]. at the pay office. 
To-day an advance has been notified by the Under- 
Secretary for War. They are paid 150]. Even that is 
scarcely enough to stimulate men to follow in the path 
of scientific research. I do not believe that any 
man who has the true scientific spirit—I appeal to my 
hon. friend to back me up there—is ever attracted by 
the mere sake of gain. There is something of the 
scientific spirit which is almost incompatible with 
making money. When I read the lives of the great 
workers of the past I feel indignation even now. 
Take, for instance, the record of Faraday. The great 
man, who stands out among the few whose names 
will be remembered for a thousand years, even after 
the records of our own Parliament have passed away, 
as one of the great pioneers of human civilisation ; 
toiled all his life at the stipend -of the valet of a peer, 
and that, remember, in a country where a man’s 
social status and his work, as he calls it, is judged 
very largely from the amount of salary that he earns. 
There will be a revolution when the war is over; 
a peaceful revolution, if you will, which will be felt 
right throughout the world, enlarging our education 
particularly in regard to our technical schools. 
not want the history of the world in text-books given 
to children at their most susceptible age, which divide 
history into reigns of kings and queens, most of them 
utterly worthless, as if the whole philosophy of the 
world turned on the sanguinary and wretched and 
often unintelligible accounts of wars and battles. I 
hope the time will come when we shall have a clearer 
and saner view of the whole scope and importance 
of education. It will be more important for the child 
to know the date at which Oersted discovered the 
reaction between electricity and magnetism than even 
to know the date of the battle of Waterloo. There is 
in science a real spiritual influence—that it to say, 
the most alluring and fascinating of all the problems 
which can attract the mind in the gradual unfolding 
of the meaning of this world itself in which we live. 
I would like the President of the Board of Education 
to take his courage in his hands as did Wilhelm von 
Humboldt in other days; and if he feels himself not 
strong enough to do this work solus, let him call in 
the aid of those enthusiastic in the development of 
science, and the help of those committees of which 
he has spoken, to carry out their recommendations, 
not in the half-hearted way in which matters have 
sometimes been presented in this House, but with 
something like the missionary zeal of a new evangel. 
J am certain that when this war is over if the 
education of this country remains in the condition in 
which it now is, you may bolster up your military 
power, you may build Dreadnought after Dread- 
nought, but this country will sink. But if this 
country is to save itself, to regenerate itself, and to 
NO. 2377, VOL. 95] 
We do. 

proceed on a new path of high development, then the 
most vital of all problems is that of education. 
Mr. Kine: On this Vote we have had a chorus 
of approval in favour of greatly increased expenditure 
on scientific education. I wish to join in that chorus. 
You cannot have a nation able to benefit by the scien- 
tific research and technical instruction and the various 
facilities for scientific advance which have been fore- 
shadowed to-night unless you have a good foundation 
in elementary education. If you begin on the same 
night to cut and curtail elementary education, you 
are doing an evil turn to advanced research in scien- 
tific education. I wish very heartily to congratulate 
the representatives of the Board of Education upon 
having shown what is to my mind the first evidence 
we have had that statesmanlike foresight exists on 
the Treasury Bench at the present time. We have 
had plenty of energetic pushing on or the war, but in 
grasping the issues of what are to come after, and to 
prepare for the inevitable changes and difficulties and 
problems which will immediately arise at the end of 
the war, this is the first inkling we have had that 
those considerations are present to the mind of the 
Government. I congratulate the President of the 
Board of Education and the Parliamentary Secretary 
to the Board of Education on the scheme they have 
put forward. I from time to time directed attention, 
by means of questions and in other ways, to our great 
deficiency in scientific and technical education, 
especially with regard to research. Anybody who 
knows anything about Germany knows the enormous 
amount of money and the great numbers of men of 
the highest ability and training and standing engaged 
in purely scientific research and inquiry. 
Everybody who thinks of it and who studies the 
question must know that Germany’s position in the 
world to-day is due not to the real genius of the 
people so much as to organisation combined with 
education, and especially scientific education. I am 
very pleased that at this time there is an opportunity 
for an educational advance. I congratulate the mem- 
bers on the Treasury Bench upon their courage and 
persistence, for I believe it must have needed some- 
thing of that kind to get this scheme through the 
Cabinet. I congratulate them on the prospect of 
having an early Supplementary Estimate. It is true 
it is only 25,oool. I think it ought to be ten times 
as much, but I have no doubt it is an estimate that 
will grow. I should like to recall to the members 
of the Committee the historical references, to my mind 
of great significance, which we had from the hon. 
member for West Clare (Mr. Lynch). It was in the 
year 1809, only two years after the Peace of Tilsit, 
that Prussia started the University of Berlin. Prussia 
had been robbed of half its territory by the Peace of 
Tilsit, which also imposed upon it an enormous in- 
demnity. It had also to support a huge French army 
of occupation until the indemnity was paid. Yet in 
that very time Stein and Wilhelm von Humboldt 
founded the University of Berlin, which has become 
for its equipment and influence in scientific matters by 
far the greatest University in the world. They also 
established at the same time, when the taxes were 
simply overwhelmingly crushing, the elementary-school 
system of Prussia, which remains to the present day. 
I say that a nation that could so appreciate in its 
hour of ruin the value of education is a lesson to us 
which we ought to take to heart. 
Mr. Rawinson: I was very glad to hear the 
President’s announcement of the creation of an Advi- 
sory Council to deal with this matter, and I need 
scarcely say that though I have not been able to 
consult them upon the point, the University of Cam- 
bridge, I am sure, will give most unstinted support 


