TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION B. 591 



his assistants are busily investigating the chemical nature of numerous interesting 

 products obtained from all parts of Greater Britain. 



There can, in my opinion, be no doubt that this much extended cultivation of 

 scientific chemistry in this country, which is such a noticeable feature of the C(m- 

 cluding years of the nineteenth century, has been greatly assisted bj"^ a most fortu- 

 nate, and more or less accidental, circumstance, without which the energy and 

 enthusiasm of our chemical teachers would have been seriously restricted in their 

 influence. I refer to the very substantial surplus, producing an income of 0,000/. 

 to 7,000/. a year, of which the Commissioners of the 1851 Exhibition found them- 

 selves possessed, and its utilisation on the advice of the late Lord Playfair for 

 the purpose of the Research Scholarships which have for some ten years past been 

 so highly prized by all the educational institutions permitted to participate in 

 them. The good wrought by these scholarships has been very far-reaching, and it 

 would be difficult to praise too highly the wisdom displayed by the Commissioners 

 in drawing up the conditions on which they are awarded. Firstly, by not limiting 

 them to any one science, they have stimulated a wholesome rivalry between 

 departments to bring on their promising students to the level of scientific investi- 

 gation. Secondly, they have compelled the governing bodies of educational insti- 

 tutions to recognise and make provision for research as part of the regular pro- 

 gramme of these places. Thirdly, they have encouraged talented students to 

 devote an additional year, or even more, to their education in the hope of securing 

 one of these prizes ; and these students have thus provided their teachers with the 

 fermnnel necessary for carrying on scientific work. Fourthly, the scholars them- 

 selves have had the inestimable advantage of extending their horizon, and of 

 coming in contact with other teachers, other schools of thought, and other views 

 of life. Fifthly, these scholars on their return, and before they have obtained 

 definite employment, are v?elcomed as supernumeraries in English colleges, where 

 they have an opportunity of continuing their researches, and where they assist in 

 imbuing the students with the spirit which they have themselves imbibed. Lastly, 

 these and other scholarships of a similar character are providing the country with a 

 body of highly trained men whose value to the nation is annually becoming more 

 appreciated, and whose work will continue to bear fruit directly or indirectly for an 

 indefinite period of time. These Exhibition scholarships have now been awarded 

 since 1891, and already no fewer than sixty-five chemists, including three women, 

 have enjoyed the enormous privilege of extending their education for a period of 

 two, and in special cases even three, years under the most favouralile sur- 

 roundings. 



Bearing in mind the rooted objection which pervades the people of this country 

 to expend any public money on higher education, it is marvellous that it shoidd 

 have been possible to employ this fund, which after all is of a quasi-public character, 

 for what may be described as educational use at a high potential, instead of its being 

 dissipated in the manner so dear to Englishmen, by benefiting to an infinitesimal 

 extent a much larger number of persons. Indeed, but for the vertebrate cha- 

 racter of the Commissioners in 1877, the fund would have been thus frittered away, 

 for in that year they were waited upon by a deputation of influential persons who 

 urged that the money should be distributed in grants to provincial museums. 

 Had that been done what would have been the result ? The masses would 

 have had a few more glass cases to gaze at on wet days and bank holidays ! 



There can, I think, be little doubt that in this matter of the allocation of 

 funds intended for the public good we have reached a turning-point in the road 

 which we have been so long pursuing. Until recently it has been the feeling of a 

 very powerful majority in this country that public money should only be spent in 

 such a way as to directly benefit very large numbers ; and in the case of educa- 

 tional funds, therefore, it was only their utilisation for the benefit of the masses 

 that could be entertained. Now, whilst it is indubitable that the improvement of 

 oui" primary education was for many years a crying necessity, it has long been 

 obvious to a minority that this policy is systematically starving that higher edu- 

 cation in which we are lagging more and more behind those other countries in 

 TvUich greater elasticity prevails, and in which the immediate and obvious wants 



