April 8, 1909J 



NATURE 



-11 



mark ut .i live man, and what he wanted in his business 

 was live men. That was only one way of expressing the 

 doctrine you have all heard preached. That doctrine con- 

 cerns the value of research. For, after all, what is meant 

 in this connection by research is just this, that the student 

 is brought face to lace with some of the living problems 

 on the growi[ig edge of his subject, and is shown how to 

 deal with them. Such a training is invaluable; but it 

 cannot bi- adequately tested by a written examination, nor 

 even by a practical examination lasting only a few hours. 

 Hence the importance of giving the teacher who has watched 

 and supervised such work a voice — not, of course, the sole 

 voice, but still an effective voice — in the selection of those 

 on whom a degree is to be conferred. In all the provincial 

 universities the teacher cooperates with the externa' 

 examiner in gauging the capacity of an undergraduate, and 

 so it will be in Bristol. 



It must be remembered that the training of under- 

 graduates, though an important part of the work of a 

 universily, is not its only work. \ university is not only 

 a place where knowledge is imparted, but where know- 

 ledge is made, .\part from the minor researches of under- 

 gradn.ites — which really constitute a training in research — 

 there arc the major researches of the • staff and of post- 

 graduate students. If the University of Bristol is to take 

 its proper place in the community of provincial universities, 

 the professors and lecturers must have the capacity, and 

 must be given the requisite time, for such research. I 

 will not enlarge upon this subject. I will only direct atten- 

 tion to the fact that there are important agricultural 

 problems and some fishery problems which await solution 

 in the district round us, and to the solution of which I 

 trust the University of Bristol will contribute. The uni- 

 versity should be regarded as the natural centre of research 

 in such matters. There must be a great number of com- 

 inerci.-il problems on which skilled work is required. I 

 should lil<e to see the University specialise on some of 

 these. We shall need, too, some local colour in our Uni- 

 versity. 1 cherish the hope that a Cabot chair of geo- 

 graphy may be founded in Bristol, where a carefully 

 organised training in this subject, both in its more academic 

 and in it- commercial aspect, will be developed. 



I have, so far, refrained from making any reference to 

 the system of education which has of late years been 

 developed in Germany. Xor do I now propose to trouble 

 you with statistics and details. On one salient character- 

 istic I venture to comment. Mr. Haldane has directed 

 attention to what he regards as a growing feature of 

 German life, which finds expression in " the double aim 

 of the German university system — pure culture, on the one 

 hand, and on the other the application of the highest know- 

 ledge to conmiercial enterprise." Germany has realised, 

 as England is only beginning to realise, and that somewhat 

 slowly, that the application of the highest knowledge to 

 commerrial enterprise is the secret of industrial success. 

 In England the university professor is too often regarded 

 by practical men as an upper schoolmaster, whose doctrin- 

 aire notions are of little value outside his class-room or 

 his lahor.itory ; but when some months ago the Chancellor 

 of the Exchequer went into one of the largest workshops 

 of Germany, he was taken round by a professor. He 

 asked wli.it a professor had to do with it, and was told, 

 "the professors are our experts." The Germans, Mr. 

 Lloyd George said, get their ideas from their professors. 

 He regarded the universities as factories where the future 

 of the country is being forged, and he gave it as his 

 opinion that there is no investment that will produce such 

 a return, not to the investor, but to generations to come, 

 as the endowment of higher education. 



That, tlien, is one aspect of the function of a university. 

 It should contribute to the work of the world at the 

 highest level of efficiency. Twenty years ago Lord Salis- 

 bury said, " Man's first necessity is to live, his first duty 

 is to work, and the object of education is to fit him for 

 his work "; but man does not live by work alone. To 

 .ichieve success in commercial warfare in the field of in- 

 dustrial competition is not the sole aim of education. This 

 alone will not make a nation great. You will perhaps 

 pardon one who is, in part at least, a philosopher by trade, 

 for quntiny .Aristotle: — "The whole of life," we read in 

 his " r,il:;i.s," " is divided into two parts — business and 



NO. 205S, VOL. 80] 



leisure, war and peace — and all our actions are divided into 

 such as are necessary and useful, and such as are fine. 

 We have to be busy and to go to war, but still more to 

 be at peace and in the enjoyment of leisure. We must do 

 what is useful and necessary, but still more what is fine. 

 These are the aims wc have to keep in view in the educa- 

 tion of our children, and people of every age that require 

 education." This is the doctrine of culture, a doctrine 

 which, I trust, the University of Bristol will strive to carry 

 out in practice not less sedulously than that of the applica- 

 tion of the highest knowledge to commercial enterprise. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



At the monthly meeting of the governors of the Imperial 

 College of Science and Technology on .April 2 it was 

 decided, subject to the approval of the King in Council, 

 to recognise the metallurgical department of the University 

 of Sheffield as being in association with the Imperial 

 College of Science and Technology for the advanced 

 metallurgy of iron and steel, as provided for in the 

 charter. 



On -April 2, at Edinburgh Univei'sity, the honorary degree 

 of LL.D. was conferred upon Mr. J. G. Bartholomew, 

 hon. secretary Royal Scottish Geographical Society ; Prof. 

 A. Crum Brown, F.R.S. ; Prof. W. Burnside, F.R.S., 

 Royal Naval College, Greenwich ; Prof. Taylor ; Sir .Alfred 

 Keogh, K.C.B.', Director-General of the .Army Medical Ser- 

 vice ; Prof. C. H. Kronecker, University of Berne ; and 

 Dr.- J. E. Sandys, Public Orator in Cambridge University. 



-Among recent gifts to higher education in the United 

 States, Science announces a donation of 35,400!. from Mr. 

 J. D. Rockefeller to the University of Chicago. The New 

 York Evening Post states that the University of Missouri 

 will receive 100,000/., for the assistance of needy students, 

 by the will of the late Mr. C. R. Gregory, of St. Louis. 

 The Weverhauser interests of St. Paul have given to the 

 Universitv of Minnesota 2200 acres of land in Carlton 

 County for the use of experiments by the forestry depart- 

 ment. 



.A COMMITTEE has been appointed by the Treasury to 

 consider the statements of claims to additional State 

 assistance and estimates of the amounts needed for the 

 respective services, which have been supplied by the 

 Scottish universities at the request of His Majesty's 

 Governinent ; and to report as to what assistance, if any, 

 should be granted from public funds in the interests of 

 the proper development of the work of the universities, due 

 regard being had to the coordination of their work with 

 that of other institutions in Scotland giving instruction 

 of a universitv standard. The committee is composed of 

 the following "members : — the Earl of Elgin and Kincar- 

 dine, K.C. (chairman), Miss Haldane, Sir Kenelm Digby, 

 G.C.'B.. Principal Sir Harrv Reichel, Mr. C. M. Douglas, 

 Prof. .A. R. Forsyth, F.R.'S., and Prof. G. Sims Wood- 

 head. 



SOMERVILLE COLLEGE, Oxford, is offering, for the third 

 time, a research fellowship of the annual value of 120/., 

 tenable for three vears, for which application must be 

 inade before Mav '15 to Miss H. Darbishire, Somerville 

 College, Oxford.' The fellowship is now, for the first 

 lime, open to women students of Cambridge and Trinity 

 College, Dublin, as well as of Oxford. The two fellows 

 hitherto elected have done valuable original work. Miss 

 E. Jamieson was engaged in researches among the 

 archives in Monte Cassino, La Cava, and Sicily, with a 

 vipw to the constitutional history of the reign of Roger 11. 

 of Sicilv. Miss F. Isaac has 'been engaged in reseai^ch 

 on the nature and properties of supersaturated crystalline 

 solutions and mixtures, and the results of her work have 

 been published in the Proceedings of the Royal and other 

 scientific societies. 



The Board of Education has published a volume which 

 contains particulars of the application of funds by local 

 authorities in England and Wales to the purpose of educa- 

 tion other than'elementarv, in the financial year ended 

 March 31, iqo;. The retu'rns deal with secondary educa- 



