498 
NATURE 
oo ; ~ 
[ Sept. 24, 1885 
add a new section to it betimes, for it is inevitable that 
the liberty of ignorance, which is impoverishing the life of 
the country at home and letting its trade slip through its 
fingers abroad, should soon be very rudely interfered with 
by the State. At present it isa case in this matter of 
Great Britain contra mundum. Every other civilised 
country has come to the conclusion by this time that the 
competition of the world is now a competition of intellect, 
and has taken steps accordingly. Either we or they must 
be wrong ; and that it is we is now being brought home 
to us by the conclusive ‘argument to the pocket. John 
Bull’s one ambition, according to Mr. Punch, is to 
“guard his pudding ;’ but then he is beginning to find 
out that he can only fill his stomach by first filling his 
head. From the recognition of the vital importance 
of science to its establishment by the State—in a much 
less half-hearted fashion than at present—~is in these days 
a short and inevitable step. The same considerations by 
which State interference has been justified elsewhere—its 
greater certainty, its ampler resources, its wider range— 
are all equally applicable here, and will come to be equally 
applied.” 
The Gloée says the “argument” of the address may 
be conceded. Science deserves from the State all that 
the State can do for her. Minerva is a sort of alien deity 
in our intellectual Pantheon, and it is certain that the 
tendency and pressure of modern conditions impose upon 
all civilised States, an increasing obligation to learn or to 
lag. But it questions whether we really are in the evil 
plight depicted by the President, and points to “the 
magnificent private endowments of our insular founda- 
tions”—a source of revenue comparatively non-existent 
abroad, which, it states, Sir Lyon Playfair strangely 
ignores. 
The S¢. Fames’s Gazette thinks that reformers might 
bend some of their energies to seeing that more tech- 
nical science and more arts likely to be useful to the 
craftsman and the mechanic, were brought within the 
curriculum of the Board Schools. For them we could 
easily spare some of the literary subjects :-— 
“With the moral of Sir Lyon Playfair’s scientific 
sermon, and the journalistic lectures based on it, most 
people will agree. This is an age of science, and you 
can do nothing effectual in the practical way, from 
building ironclads to catching mussels, without a know- 
ledge of what are called ‘the laws of nature.’ If you do 
not want your ironclads to be sunk by those of other 
navies, or your mussel trade to be ruined by foreign com- 
petition, you will do well to see that the ‘laws of nature’ 
are properly studied in your schools and colleges. That 
technical education in this country is not so good as it 
might be, and as it possibly is elsewhere, may be 
admitted.” 
“ 
But it does not think that this is due to superabund- 
ance of classics in our system of middle and higher-class 
education. 
The Guardian, at the conclusion of a lengthy article 
devoted to the address, sums up its conclusions on the 
subject of the relations of the State to science thus :— 
“On the whole we are inclined to think that the best 
service the State can render to education is to continue 
to help it-in the unsystematic and irregular way which 
has hitherto proved so useful, considering each case as it 
arises, and adapting its measures to the particular needs 
which are brought before it. Much more may, no doubt, 
be done for Science, but it may be done in the same way 
as before, by grants for special purposes, by expeditions 
fitted out for costly investigations, perhaps by the foundation 
of professorships and scholarships. But it would be 
a misfortune if the free action of individual thought were 
repressed by being obliged to conform to the rules of a 
State-imposed system, or if individual exertion and pri- 
vate munificence were discouraged by the habit, already 
growing upon us too much, of looking to the State rather 
than to ourselves for the removal of every difficulty and 
the promotion of every useful end.” 
The Atheneum, refers to what has been done by the 
State for science since the last meeting of the British 
Association at Aberdeen twenty years ago, and instances 
the Science and Art Department, the Natural History 
Museum, grants to the Royal Society, &c., proceeds :— 
“All this—and much more might be added—shows 
that British statecraft is not altogether disposed to frown 
coldly upon science and its devotees. And yet, after all, 
how little—how miserably little—has been officially done 
for the promotion of science compared with the magni- 
tude of our scientific interests and the wealth of our 
country! It is only by looking abroad and observing 
what has been accomplished in other lands that we 
realise our own shortcomings. Germany and France, 
Switzerland, and some of the other small continental 
States, have displayed a zeal for scientific progress and a 
liberal recognition of science which strikingly contrast 
with our own parsimony. Even when we have under- 
taken a good work our heart has often failed us in carry- 
ing it through with dignity and liberality. As a striking 
and recent example we may refer to the Challenger expe- 
dition. Here was an expedition splendidly equipped for 
scientific work at the expense of the nation; and yet, 
when the results of the expedition come to be published 
as voluminous reports, they are distributed with so sparing 
a hand, and are published at so high a price, as to be 
practically inaccessible to most men of science.” 
The Saturday Review says that Sir Lyon Playfair’s 
words are tempered by the consciousness that he may 
some day be called upon to make them good, and this 
adds the greater force to the adverse verdict which he is 
compelled to give, the censure which he cannot help pro- 
nouncing on the action of the State towards science in 
England. The reply to the question, What has the State 
done directly for science? the answer is, But little com- 
pared with the need, and that little often in the wrong 
way. As the pocket is said to be the most sensitive part 
of our race, it is to be hoped that when the British Asso- 
ciation next meets in Aberdeen its future president will 
not be forced to repeat Sir Lyon Playfair’s assertion : 
“ English Governments alone fail to grasp the fact that 
the competition of the world has become a competition 
in intellect.” 
The Spectator speaks of the address as like a sermon 
preached by a popular clergyman on behalf of science, 
and wants to know why this branch of thought needs 
help so much more than art, literature, or pursuits like 
archeology, or the study of the historic past. It doubts 
whether in science, as in an army, honourable poverty 
does not conduce to the highest efforts; and whether 
richly endowed schools will produce the most successful 
professors, even in the inferior domain of applied science 
Wheatstone was great, and was paid? but how much a 
year, it asks, did Friar Bacon get? or did any body ever 
pay that early expert in natural science who discovered 
fire ? 
“And remembering what the history of thought has 
been, we cannot but deprecate that spirit of sordidness in 
which for some years past the claims of science have been 
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