516 ; REPORT— 1883. 
the existence amongst us of a few very eminent men is any evidence that we are 
contributing largely to the hard work of careful study and observation which 
really forms the material upon which the conclusions of eminent discoverers are 
based. You will find in every department of biological knowledge, that the hard 
work of investigation is being carried on by the well-tramed army of German 
observers. Whether you ask the zoologist, the botanist, the physiologist, or the 
anthropologist, you will get the same answer: it is to German sources that he looks 
for new information; it is in German workshops that discoveries, each small in 
itself, but gradually leading up to great conclusions, are daily being made. Toa 
very large extent the business of those who are occupied with teaching or 
applying biological science in this country consists in making known what has 
been done in German laboratories; our English students flock to Germany to learn 
the methods of scientific research ; and to such a state of weakness is English 
science reduced for want of proper nurture and support, that even on some of 
the rare occasions when a capable investigator of biological problems has been re- 
quired fcr the public service, it has been necessary to obtain the assistance of 
a foreigner trained in the laboratories of Germany. 
Let me now briefly explain what are the arrangements, in number and in kind, 
which exist in other countries for the purpose of promoting the advancement 
of biological science, which are wanting in this country. 
In the German Empire, with a population of 45,000,000, there are twenty-one 
universities, These universities are very different from anything which goes by 
the name in this country. Amongst its other arrangements devoted to the study 
and teaching of all branches of learning and science, each university has five 
institutes, or establishments, devoted to the prosecution of researches in biological 
science. These are respectively the physiological, the zoological, the anatomical, 
the pathological, and the botanical. In one of these universities of average size 
each of the institutes named consists of a spacious building containing many rooms 
fitted as workshops, provided with instruments, a museum, and, in the last in- 
stance, with an experimental garden. All this is provided and maintained by the 
State. At the head of each institute is the university professor respectively of 
physiology, of zoology, of anatomy, of pathology, or of botany. He is paid a 
stipend by the State, which in the smallest university is as low as 120/., but may 
be in others as much as 700/., and averages say 400/. a year. Considering the 
relative expenditure of the professional classes in the two countries, this average 
may be taken as equal to 800/. a year in England.' Besides the professor, each 
institute has attached to it, with salaries paid by the State, two qualified assistants, 
who in course of time will succeed to independent positions. A liberal allowance 
is also made to each institute by the State for the purchase of instruments, material 
for study, and for the pay of servants, so that the total expenditure on professor, 
assistants, laboratory service, and maintenance, averages 800/. a year for each in- 
stitute—reaching as much as 2,000/. or 3,000/. a year in the larger universities. It 
is the business of the professor, in conjunction with his assistants and the advanced 
students, who are admitted to work in the laboratories free of charge, to carry on 
investigations, to create new knowledge in the several domains of physiology, 
zoology, anatomy, pathology, and botany. It is for this that the professor 
receives his stipend, and it is on his success in this field of labour that his promotion 
to a more important or better paid post in another university depends. In addi- 
tion to and irrespectively of this part of his duties, each professor is charged with 
the delivery of courses of lectures and of elementary instruction to the general 
students of the university, and for this he is allowed to charge a certain fee to each 
student, which he receives himself; the total of such fees may, in the case of a 
largely attended university and a popular subject, form a very important addition 
to the professorial income ; but it is distinctly to be understood that such payment 
1 From the fact that the salaries of judges, civil servants, military and naval 
officers, parsons and schoolmasters, as also the fees of physicians and lawyers, are in 
Germany even less than half what is paid to the same classes in England, I think that 
we are justified in making this estimate. 
