Dci. 9, 1880] 



NA TURE 



135 



president, and told them what he had seen, the answer was that 

 they had great doubts about the success of the experiment. It 

 was thought then that the practical place to give technical 

 instruction and teach the application of science to industry was 

 i-a the workshops. They had now satisfied themselves, however, 

 that whilst they could not dispense with the practical experience 

 of the workshops, there was something that gave value to that 

 experience. Let them take the art of dyeing for example. 

 What was the old system of training in regard to it ? The dyer 

 did not then ascertain the properties of the articles with which 

 he had to deal with that slvill and accuracy with which the 

 young men of Leeds were ascertaining them to-day. It used to 

 be a bucketful of this, a shovelful of that, and a handful of the 

 other. But the days of the old rule of thumb were numbered ; 

 and on standing at 'the cradle of the Yorkshire College he stood 

 by the grave of the rule of thumb. He had been greatly en- 

 couraged this week by his visit to Yorkshire. He came to it 

 somewhat in a state of despondency : not however with reference 

 to elementary instruction, for the people of Yorkshire were 

 doing wonders in that way, and in a few- years hence this 

 county would compare favourably in that respect with any part 

 of the globe. But he had been examining recently, not for the first 

 but the tenth time, what was being done on the Continent in the 

 way of technical education. They had opened a good school in 

 Leeds, but they must not flatter themselves. They must not believe 

 that the 25,000/. which his friend Mr. Denison had indicated 

 was the sum wanted to complete the work. He had stood in an 

 industrial town of 70,000 inhabitants, in which a single building 

 that had been erected within Ihe past three years solely for 

 teaching science, as applied to indu?try, had cost 100,000/. He 

 had stood in three or four such towns. He had examined tech- 

 nical institutions in France, in Switzerland, and in the south 

 and north and centre of Germany, and all he could say was, 

 that not having examined these institutions critically for five 

 years, he stood amazed and almost aghast at what he beheld. He 

 came home feeling that in the countries he had mentioned they 

 had found the weak place in our armour, and had wounded us 

 in our tender part ; but what he had seen in Yorkshire within 

 the last week had given him renewed confidence and courage. 

 He found, in addition to this splendid institution which had 

 been opened to-day, that in the little town of Keighlcy — a very 

 splendid little place — they were going to spend 5000.'. in a 

 weaving-school ; that the Clothworkers' Company of London 

 were going to assi;t Bradford also ; and he was told that in 

 Huddersfield they had got 15,000/. or 16,000/. ; that they had 

 no longer to teach elementary instruction in tlieir night-classes, 

 but wanted to give scientific and technical instruction to their 

 workmen, and wanted a school for Huddersfield. Yesterday he 

 stood by the grave of an eminent Yorkshireman w lio had done 

 noble service to the teaching of science in Yorkshu'e — his friend 

 Mr. Mark Firth. \Yould they not see that Yorkshire had 

 many as worthy sons as Rlr. Firth? Surely he was not the last 

 man that wonld endow a college for science teaching. There 

 were men, he hoped, within the sound of his voice who would 

 perpetuate their memoiy, and show some gratitude to the in- 

 dustry that had made them wealthy by endowing another wing 

 of the College like the one they had seen to-day. They must 

 not believe that this was mere amateur work. This was not 

 science teaching merely for the sake of scientific research, for 

 arriving at scientific truth, or for giving intellectual culture. Those 

 nations on the Continent who had produced such magnificent 

 buildings, machinery, and apparatus to conduct this work were not 

 doing so from sentimental reasons. They were not doing it with 

 the object simply of endowing scientific research, or to make 

 great progress in any particular branch of science. Their object 

 was a very prosaic and a very practical one, and very full of 

 self-interest. What they meant was to get industrial strength, 

 which they believed was the real source of the wealth of their 

 nation. The Yorkshire College was founded to supply instruc- 

 tion in those sciences which w ere applicable to the industrial 

 arts. He might say as the result of his recent observations that 

 France and Germany were conducting as active a competition 

 ■with each other in this matter of arming for the industrial fight 

 as any of the nations of the Continent of Europe were in their 

 military armaments with a view to any catastrophe in future. 

 But this was not a case in which Englishmen could look on w ith 

 benevolent neutrality, because after all in this international fight 

 they could not stand aloof, they could not remain neutral, for 

 the blow, whenever it fell, would fall upon them. Rely upon it 

 the success of the Science College of Yorkshire meant the success 



of Yorkshire itself. They possessed great natural resources for 

 which their Continental neighbours envied them. They had in 

 their immediate niighbourhood, in the mine, the coal and iron ; 

 they had in their people great vigour, great energy, and great 

 inventive capacity ; and they had also their old prestige. They 

 had amongst them men of great wealth. There was his friend 

 Mr. Denison ready to provide them capital very freely — at a very 

 moderate rate. England, after all, was the great emporium as 

 a depot market for nearly all the raw material of the world. To 

 London came that Australian wool so many thousand bales of 

 which were exported to their neighbours on the other side of 

 the w-ater, and then came back to them in a finished state for the 

 consumption of their own population. He was speaking from 

 actual knowledge when he said that there was an enormous increase 

 in the manufacture of dressed goods that could be well made 

 in Yorkshire, that could be produced and sold in Yorkshire, and 

 that were yet made abroad, but ought to be made at home. He be- 

 lieved the step they were taking that day in opening the College 

 was the very way to create that employment at home which at pre- 

 sent was too much done abroad. It had been said that the country 

 gentlemen ought to assist in this movement. Lord Frederick 

 Cavendish had come from a great and honourable house, and 

 they all rejoiced in the wealth, ability, business capacity, saga- 

 city, and liberality of that house. But what was it that had 

 made these great houses and England wealthy? Was it not the 

 value which had been added to the land by the success of the 

 great manufactures ? The success of the great houses of Eng- 

 land was bound up in the success of the Yorkshire College and 

 of other colleges like it. Thus to the success of their manufac- 

 tures they must look for the continued greatness of England in 

 its dealings with nations in the future. Why, they had hut the 

 same area of land now as they had when their population was 

 only 10,000,000. They had 25,000,000 of people in England 

 and Wales now-, and they were multiplying at a rate which 

 would soon double this number. What was it that was to feed 

 all these people but the success of their manufactures ? If they 

 were to hold then- own they must not lose a point; they must 

 not neglect a single opportunity ; they must not rest content on 

 their old prestige ; but they must, as Englishmen, look the diffi- 

 culty in the face, and, where weakness existed, strengthen 

 themselves, and this weakness was to be found entirely in the 

 question of education, which they had too long neglected. In 

 asking them to drink success to the Yorkshire College, he w^as 

 asking them practically to drink to themselves. If they wished 

 perfect freedom to carry on this work, he was quite of the opinion 

 of Lord Frederick Cavendish that they must adopt the newest 

 methods — to be untrammelled in their efforts, to carry on the 

 College by themselves, and in that way in which Englishmen had 

 been accustomed to do their work. 



THE ROYAL SOCIETY— ADDRESS OF THE 



PRESIDENT 1 



II. 



THE asi^ect of spectrum analysis has become much complicated 

 by two sets of facts. First, the increased dispersion, the im- 

 proved definition, the enlarged electrical power at our command, 

 and, above all, the substitution of photography for eye observa- 

 tions, have revealed to us an almost overwhelming array of lines 

 belonging to each substance. And, secondly, the same means 

 have shown that many substances present different spectra when 

 in different molecular states. Ihese complications have led 

 spectroscopists to seek some relief in theories of simplification. 

 Lecoq de Boisbaudran, Stoney, Soret, and others have suggested 

 that many of the lines, or groups of lines, may be regarded as 

 the harmonics of a fundamental vibration ; and they have shown 

 that in certain cases this view will account for the pheno- 

 mena observed. Professors Liveing and Dewar have contributed 

 largely to the subject by their observations on the reversed lines. 

 Looking in another direction, Mr. Lockyer considers that m 

 increase°cl temperature we have the means not only of resolving 

 compound bodies into their elements, but even of dissociating 

 bodies hitherto regarded as elementary into still more simple 

 substances. There still remain serious difficulties connected with 

 Mr. Lockyer's views ; but it is to be hoped that his indefatigable 

 energy will in some way or other ultimately overcome them. 

 The outlying parts of the spectrum, beyond the visible range, 

 ' Address of William Spoltiswoode, D.C.L., LL.D., ihe President, 

 deli^red ft the Anniversary Meeting of the Royal Society oa Tuesday, 

 November 30, iSSo. Cont.nued from p. ii4- 



