March 4, 1909J 



NATURE 



nine, eight have been promoted to fellowships. Of the 

 others, eight resigned belore the beginning of the academic 

 year, and nine during the academic year m question. The 

 department.- ){ science in which the scholars proposed to 

 work, or in vhich they have worked, are as follows, the 

 numbers indicating tne applicants in each branch : — 

 geology, onr ; paUeonloIogy, one ; botany, seven ; agri- 

 culture, five J zoology, five; anatomy, two; embryology, 

 two ; physiology, three ; pharmacology, two ; pathology, 

 eleven ; surgery, two. 'Ihe distribution of ninety-one 

 grantees, according to their subjects, was as follows : — 

 meteorology, one ; geology, six ; paljeontology, two ; 

 botany, three ; agriculture, four ; zoology, ten ; anatomy, 

 seven; embryology, four; anthropology, one; physiology, 

 sixteen ; pharmacology, four ; pathology, twenty-eight ; 

 therapeutics, five. The grantees fall into three groups : — 

 (a) cases where grants have been made to persons holding 

 responsible positions as heads of scientific departments or 

 to assistants in such departments ; [b) cases where grants 

 have been made to persons in other positions, and who are 

 engaged in research work in leisure time ; (c) cases where 

 grants have been made to young workers often in lieu of 

 scholarships for which they have applied. 



In concluding his report. Dr. Ritchie remarks that it is 

 not difficult, in reading between the lines of the papers 

 relating to the beneficiaries, to see that in very many cases 

 the work which has been done would never have been 

 undertaken unless the assistance of the trust had been 

 given, and that in no corresponding period in the history 

 of the universities of Scotland has so much research work 

 of such uniformly high character been successfully 

 carried on. 



.^s regards historical, economic, and linguistic subjects. 

 Dr. Hume Brown reports that, out of eighteen scholars 

 and fellows, there are only four who have failed in greater 

 or lesser degree to fulfil the conditions of the trust. What 

 is noteworthy is that the work done has been original 

 work, which really advances the various subjects under- 

 taken by the beneficiaries. There appear to be three chief 

 causes of the few failures that have occurred. Some 

 candidates wore recommended on the strength of their 

 record of study in the universities, but it may happen that 

 students who have distinguished themselves under the 

 pressure of competition may show a lack of concentration 

 when that pressure is removed. Such cases will occur, and 

 can hardly be prevented. Another cause of failure is that 

 the scholar had no clear conception of the work he under- 

 took, with the result that time and labour were lost before 

 he found his way to the essentials of his subject. The 

 majority of the applicants for scholarships have had little 

 or no previous experience in research, and it is important 

 that they should be carefully supervised. The beneficiaries 

 who have received grants are seventeen in all, of whom 

 only one or two have proved more or less unsatisfactory. 



.'\t the annual meeting of the trustees on February 24 

 Lord Elgin moved the adoption of the report, Mr. Balfour 

 seconded, and the motion was adopted unanimously. 



In the course of his remarks, Mr. Balfour said : — This 

 is a special occasion in the history of the trust. It is the 

 first time that anything in the nature of a complete survey 

 of the work that has been done under certain sections of 

 the trust has been possible to us. It is the first time that 

 the public can be really put in possession of information 

 which will enable them to judge of the value of the great 

 benefaction which the founder established for his country- 

 men and for the world. There is one department of the 

 trust of which, since I am not a member of the executive, 

 I may speak with a freedom of praise which would be 

 quite impossible were any of the credit or any of the re- 

 sponsibility due to me. I refer to that portion of the work 

 with which this great report is chiefly occupied — the por- 

 tion of the work which consists in encouraging original 

 research. • 



It is evident that this great object is partially ministered 

 to by that portion of our endowment which is given to 

 equipping libraries, laboratories, and providing our uni- 

 versities with all the modern appliances which seem ever 

 more costly as the progress of science adv.inces, and with- 

 out which it is quite impossible for a modern university 

 to do its proper work. But it is not on that portion of 



our labours on which I should like, specially at the 

 moment, to congratulate Mr. Andrew Carnegie and the 

 executive. It is rather upon the portion of the work- 

 which deals with the encouragement of those competent 

 to carry on original work — an encouragement over and 

 above that of merely supplying universities with the neces- 

 sary equipment of books and apparatus. It is obvious that 

 the task of selecting people who can do this work is very 

 difficult and very delicate. It is surrounded with puzzling, 

 questions of administration, but the way it has been solved 

 by the executive committee of the universities concerned, 

 and the success which has attended their efforts, raises even 

 the highest hopes of even the most optimistic and hopeful 

 in connection with the movement. There is no greater 

 waste in the world, and no more serious waste in the 

 world, than waste of brains and intellect, of originality, 

 and of scientific imagination, which may be used to further 

 the knowledge of mankind of the history of the world, if 

 men who are capable of carrying on investigations of this 

 sort are given the opportunity of doing so. Competitive 

 examinations are literally no test whatever of ability for 

 original research. What is wanted is something much 

 higher, much rarer, than the mere capacity for absorbing 

 knowledge, and reproducing it rapidly when the time for 

 examination comes round. What is required is some spark 

 of that divine genius which shows itself in many ways, 

 but which is, after all, a great element to which we must 

 look for the progress of our race and the improvement of 

 our civilisation. 



What is it we want to do? We want to catch the man 

 immediately after he has gone through his academic course, 

 before he has become absorbed in professional life. At 

 the moment when ideas spring most easily to the mind,- 

 when originality comes most naturally to the happily 

 endowed individual, we want to catch him and turn him 

 on to some inquiry which he is fully qualified to pursue 

 with success. It is not an easy taste to catch the man, 

 and the number of men worth catching is not very large. 

 The report speaks of a certain number of failures ; there 

 are not many among those who have been selected. It is 

 amazing that the number is not much larger. No intuition 

 will ever enable us to discover whether the man has any- 

 thing beyond the ambition to do good work in original 

 research. We have only to look at the reports of the 

 experts who have dealt with the papers to consider the 

 growth in the number of original papers accepted by 

 scientific magazines which have issued from Scotland to see 

 how much has been done to further this great cause of 

 original research. We may divide the persons who are 

 competent to carry on original research roughly into two 

 classes, those who have the gift and ambition, but not one 

 of those rare and overmastering ambitions which forces 

 a man into this particular career for all his life. We have 

 to catch them before they get absorbed in the necessary 

 occupations of life and extract from them all we cari in 

 the way of invention and originality. Then there is a 

 rare and higher class, those who seem born for research, 

 to whom the penetration into the secrets of nature or into 

 the secrets of history is an absorbing and overmastering 

 passion, from which' they will not be diverted or arrested 

 except by absolute overmastering necessity of earning their 

 daily bread and supporting themselves and their families. 

 To these men it is all important, not for the sake of the 

 men, but for the sake of the community, that they should' 

 have a chance of devoting their talents — rare talents — to 

 that great work for which God undoubtedly intended" 

 them. 



Work of the kind being done will never be able to be 

 estimated by tables of statistics or measurement of out- 

 put, but, in spite of that, will count, and count largely, 

 among the afi'airs to which we shall owe the progress of 

 knowledge, of invention, and of civilisation. Mr. Carnegie 

 has, bv this endowment of research, done a work which 

 not only adds lustre to the history of his native country,^ 

 but also has no provincial or national aspect about it, and' 

 will add to that stock of knowledge and invention which, 

 when once made, is the common heritage of civilised man- 

 kind. In so doing Mr. Carnegie deserves not merely the 

 thanks of those to whom he has entrusted the administra- 

 tion of his magnificent benefaction, but the thanks of the 

 whole civilised world. 



NO. 2053, VOL. 80] 



