NA TURE 



[September 9, 1909 



every scheme does that. The immense advantage of 

 .allov^ing a researcher readily to determine and give an 

 accepted name to an animal he is investigating without 

 waiting weary days in struggling through a vast and 

 scattered literature for the sake of synonymy would sureiy 

 far out-balance any temporary injustice. 



One last phase of my subject and I have finished with 

 what I want to say on the subject of organising zoology. 

 In Europe the great museums of our metropolitan towns 

 are State museums, endowed by the State, managed by 

 the State, and in Great Britain and Ireland staffed and 

 <-urated by the State ; that is to say, the officials at the 

 museums are Civil Servants. Let us consider for a moment 

 what that means, and let us take the British Museum, 

 which, in its entirety, is second to none in the world as 

 s,n example of a State museum. 



The British Museum was established by an Act of Parlia- 

 ment in the year 1753 (26 Geo. II. cap. xxii). This Act 

 sanctioned the purchase of collections and library of Sir 

 Hans Sloane, that prince of collectors, for the compara- 

 tively insignificant sum of 20,000/. In fact, Sir Hans left 

 his magnificent collection of natural objects, which, twenty 

 years before his death, amounted to just under 70,000 

 ■specimens, his library of 40,000 printed volumes and 4100 

 manuscripts, to the nation, on condition that 20,000/., 

 about one-fourth of the estimated value of the collections, 

 fee paid to his executors. Under the above-mentioned Act 

 10,000/. were paid to each of Sir Hans Sloane 's daughters, 

 Mrs. Stanley and Lady Cadogan. The same Act provided 

 10,000/. for the purchase from the Duchess of Portland, 

 heiress of the second Earl of Oxford, of the Harley coUec- 

 'tion of charters and manuscripts, which were then in the 

 market, and other moneys for the purchase and repair of 

 Montagu House, Bloomsbury, and for maintenance. The 

 Act incorporated with the Museum the Cottonian Library 

 at Westminster, which, by an Act of Parliament of 

 William III.'s reign, was under the care of trustees, chief 

 amongst whom were the Archbishop of Canterbury, the 

 Lord Chancellor, and the Speaker ; the money was raised 

 •by a lottery, and the museum was opened in January, 

 1750, just 150 years ago. 



Now it will be noticed that at its formal birth the 

 museum consisted of about two equal parts — on the one 

 hand books and manuscripts, and on the other what used 

 to be called " natural objects." 



The " General Repository," as the Act of George TI. 

 called it, was placed in the hands of a body of trustees, 

 now forty-nine in number, three of them relics of 

 AVilliam HI. — namely, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the 

 Lord Chancellor, and the Speaker of the House of 

 Commons, are trustees by virtue of office. These three 

 are known as the principal trustees; there are twentv-one 

 other trustees in virtue of their office — e.g. the Bishop of 

 London, the Presidents of the Royal Society and Royal 

 -Academy, and so on — one is appointed by the Crown, 

 nine represent the families of donors, and fifteen are co- 

 opted. So large and unwieldy a body cannot, as a whole, 

 -transact the business of a great museum, and thev have 

 largely delegated their functions to a standing cornmittee 

 of the three principal trustees and fifteen annually appointed 

 representatives. 



Now the manner of appointing to the museum is this. 

 The junior members of the staff are selected as the result 

 of examination, and when appointed thev become Civil 

 Servants. Not a bad thing in ilself, but bad for a man 

 of science. He, through no fault of his own, becomes 

 entangled in red tape ; above all, he must not make him- 

 self a_ nuisance : Xro\< dc z'ele must be avoided, his 

 enthusiasms tend to become checked, he is perpetually 

 observing what is called " official reticence," and he per- 

 'force spends his days in performing routine work during 

 routine hours. No amount of skill and ability — and the 

 staff at the museum is both skilled and able — hastens his 

 promotion. This is a matter almost entirely of seniority. 

 In fact, the conditions of the Civil Service are incompatible 

 with that freedom to research in any line that proves most 

 suggestive, and with that absence of outside control which 

 alone makes scientific research on a large scale possible. 



The appointment to the senior staff, the keepers or 

 hoads of departments, the Director of the Natural HIstorv 

 Museum, and the chief librarian, are vested in the three 

 NO. 2080, VOL. 81] 



chief principal trustees. This takes us back to the reign 

 of William HI. and the Cotton Library at Westminster. 

 No doubt the then Archbishop, the then Lord Chancellor, 

 and the then Speaker, both from propinquity and from 

 their abilities and training, were quite the best men who 

 could be found for this position of trust towards this 

 library. Probably the present liolders of these exalted 

 positions — positions which they most worthily fill and which 

 give two of them precedence after royalty in all Britain — 

 are most fully endowed with the qualities which fit them 

 to elect the senior staff for the library and for the collec- 

 tions of works of art and of antiquities at Bloomsbury. 

 I doubt if the same eminent qualities enable them to deal 

 equally satisfactorily with the higher posts in the Natural 

 History Museum. If Parliament, or indeed any other body, 

 were framing a scheme for the management of a great 

 museum of science at the present time, I do not thini; 

 it would occur to anyone that the holders of the exalted 

 otfices I have mentioned were specially fitted, either by the 

 knowledge of the pressing scientific needs and problems of 

 the moment or by their intimacy with the men of science 

 of to-day, to be the most competent electoral body to 

 choose keepers in geology, mineralogy, botany, and 

 zc^iogy. And, indeed, the existing arrangement has broke.i 

 down. I do not know how long before Sir E. Ray 

 Lankester's resignation of the joint posts of Director and 

 Keeper in Zoology, in December, 1907, it became known 

 to the trustees that that resignation was imminent, but I 

 do know that it was talked about and written about months 

 before that date. Yet after the resignation took effect 

 one whole year elapsed before the trustees appointed a 

 Keeper in Zoology ; for twelve months there was no head 

 of a department which contains collections unrivalled in 

 the world. It took the trustees about six months longer 

 to find a Director, and for about eighteen months the 

 charge of this great museum of natural history was vested, 

 under the trustees, in the Chief Librarian at Bloomsbury. 



As Prof. Ronald Ross could testify, after scientific re- 

 search has placed it within the power of man to exterminate 

 so deadly a disease as malaria, the real fight begins ; and 

 the real fight is to persuade the authorities to adopt and 

 enforce the measures which are offered them gratis. Ther^^ 

 is a case in point, if I am not misinformed, on this con- 

 tinent at the present time. It has been known since the 

 time of the making of the St. Gothard Tunnel that last- 

 ing and often fatal disease is caused by a small intestinal 

 worm, known as the tunnel-worm or hook-worm. Within 

 the last few years Dr. Wardell Stiles has shown quite 

 clearly that the unhappy condition of " poor white " of 

 the Southern United States is due largely to their being 

 affected by this hook-worm. Their bodies and their 

 intellects are arrested in their de\'elopment, and the adults 

 amongst them are unable to understand the prophylactic 

 measures he advocates, but the children could be taught if 

 the proper organisation existed for teaching them. Many 

 of the Southern States are friendly to the movement, and 

 I know of no greater service that the central Government 

 of the United States could confer upon the inhabitants of 

 these southern States, in which, as is well known. Presi- 

 dent Taft t.akes the deepest interest, than that of detail- 

 ing Dr. Stiles for several months a year to organise and 

 control this movement. If this could be done, I believe — 

 and I am here speaking of those things that I do know — 

 the United States Government would confer on their own 

 people a benefit as great as they conferred on other nations 

 when they freed Havana of yellow fever and Panama of 

 malaria. 



In concluding this part of my address I wish to say as 

 emphatically as I can that if science is to take its proper 

 place in the polity of the nation we must endeavour tc 

 have men of scientific training, or at least of scientific 

 sympathies, in the Government and also in the Govern- 

 ment offices. 



I cannot recollect the name of one single Minister trained 

 in natural or physical scipnce amongst the numerous 

 members of His Majesty's Governments of the last thirty- 

 five years. It is not so very long ago — I am glad to say 

 that one of the actors of my little storv is still with us — 

 that Sir Joseph Hooker, then Director of the Royal Gardens 

 at Kew. was walking through the grounds with Mr. 

 Ayrton, President of the Board of Works, which in those 

 d.ays was the Government Department responsible for Kew. 



