AUGUST 5, I915| 

of trees, too, contains the necessary elements for the 
support of life; but we do not utilise wood for food, 
because we have no animals that feed upon wood. 
Could not chemists do something with wood-pulp in 
this connection ? 
The German chemists are reported in the American 
newspapers to have succeeded in treating sawdust so 
as to extract a nutritive product that can be digested 
by man, the so-called ‘‘bread from sawdust.” If 
this is true, the British chemists should certainly 
be able to arrive at a similar result. 
How secure Great Britain would be if she, too, 
could make bread from sawdust, and convert grass 
and shrubs and other vegetable matter not now utilised 
into food for her people. Here is a problem of the 
greatest consequence to Great Britain that should be 
brought to the attention of her scientific men. 
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL. 
Beinn Bhreagh, near Baddeck, Nova Scotia, 
July 1o. 

THE PROMOTION OF RESEARCH BY THE 
STATE. 
jee Government scheme for the organisation 
and development of scientific and industrial 
research, of which we gave particulars last week, 
represents a welcome concession of a principle 
always advocated in these columns, and stated 
with particular force by Sir Norman Lockyer in 
his presidential address on “The Influence of 
Brain-power on History,” delivered at the South- 
port meeting of the British Association in 1903. 
The duty of a State to organise its forces as care- 
fully for peace as for war was emphasised on 
that occasion; and it was urged that adequate 
provision for scientific education and research is 
an essential part of a modern State’s machinery, 
and should be efficiently organised if we were 
not to fall behind other nations in the applications 
of science to industry. The recognition of the 
State’s responsibility in this matter would have 
come much sooner if our statesmen had been wise 
enough to understand the scientific factors of in- 
dustrial success; but it has at last been given, 
and the unanimous approval with which the 
scheme has been received must be a little sur- 
prising to the politicians who have taken so long 
to realise the part science is playing in the modern 
world, and to make provision for its national use. 
There is nothing, perhaps, so difficult as to 
alter a long-established tradition, to effect a 
real change in the mental attitude of a person or 
of a nation. It is the greatest of revolutions; it 
is the real revolution on which all action out of 
harmony with the tradition of the past depends. 
Such a change of attitude, so far as the official 
mind of the country is concerned, was announced 
last May by Mr. Pease, then President of the 
Board of Education, when he stated in the House 
of Commons: 
The war has brought home to us. . . that we have 
been far too dependent . . . upon the foreigner, and 
we have realised that it is essential, if we are going 
to maintain our position in the world, to make better 
1 For other references to what the German chemists are doing, see article 
on “Inorganic Fodder” in the Scientific American for July 3, p. 8; in 
which reference is also made to an attempt to derive from straw and hay all 
the nourishing matter contained therein. 
NO. 2388, VOL. 95] 
NATURE 

619 
use of our scientifically trained workers, that we must 
increase the number of those workers, and that we 
must endeavour to secure that industry is closely asso- 
ciated with our scientific workers, and promote a 
proper system of encouragement of research workers, 
especially in our universities. 
These convictions have been translated into 
deeds through the issue of the Government scheme. 
The action which has thus been taken by the 
Government will be hailed by all men of science 
with feelings of the utmost gratification. It is 
difficult to overestimate the value of the conse- 
quences which may follow—which, indeed, we 
feel sure will foilow—from the adoption of this 
scheme. By its inception and publication the 
Government acknowledges and _ proclaims its 
appreciation of the work of science, and by this 
acknowledgment alone it gives scientific workers 
that encouragement and prestige in the eyes of 
the country which have too long been withheld. 
The expenditure of any new moneys provided 
by Parliament for scientific and industrial 
research will be under the control of a committee 
of the Privy Council, upon the recommendation 
of the Advisory Council. The appointment of 
Lord Haldane as a non-official member of the 
committee of the Privy Council connects the 
British Science Guild with the work contemplated 
by the Government scheme. Lord Haldane was 
the first president of the guild; and at the in- 
augural meeting in 1905 he said :— 
I believe that things will not be right until we have 
a scientific corps under a permanent committee, just 
as the Defence Committee is under the Prime Minister 
to-day. I mean a body that will not consist mainly 
of officials of the ordinary kind, but of the most 
eminent men of science, who will be put on the footing 
upon which they deserve to be placed, and are recog- 
nised as a body of men who will be at the elbow of 
the department and can organise the scientific work 
of the State. I hope that if we get to this position 
the example of a Government adopting science will be 
followed by the municipalities, as I believe it is going 
to be followed more and more by our manufacturers. 
The British Science Guild may justly claim 
some credit for securing the State assistance for 
industrial and scientific research now provided for 
by the Government scheme. For the ten years 
of its existence it has persistently pointed out 
that our competitors have brought all the products 
of science into the contest they have waged 
against us; and it has urged the adoption of 
similar methods in our national affairs and manu- 
factures. Scientific men are so closely concerned 
with their own particular researches that they 
frequently take little interest in the work of others 
or in the position which science should occupy in 
national polity. Their inactivity in this respect is 
largely responsible for the neglect of science. A 
public movement was required to direct the 
attention of the public in general, and the Govern- 
ment and political parties in particular, to the 
value of the great resources of science in the 
development of the kingdom; and this movement 
took shape in the British Science Guild. The 
purpose of the guild is not so much the acquisi- 
