22 EEPORT— 1903. 



The question is, Shall we wait for a disaster and then imitate Prussia 

 and France ; or shall we follow Japan and thoroughly prepare by 

 ' intellectual effort ' for the industrial struggle which lies before us ? 



Such an efiPort seems to me to be the first thing any national or 

 imperial scientific organisation should endeavour to bring about. 



Research. 



When dealing with our Universities I referred to the importance of 

 research, as it is now generally acknowledged to be the most powerful 

 engine of education that we possess. But education, after all, is but a 

 means to the end, which, from the national point of view, is the application 

 of old and the production of new knowledge. 



Its national importance apart from education is now so generally 

 recognised that in all civilised nations except our own means of research 

 are being daily more amply provided for all students after they have 

 passed through their University career ; and, more than this, for all who 

 can increase the country's renown or prosperity by the making of new 

 knowledge, upon which not only commercial progress, but all intellectual 

 advance must depend. 



I am so anxious that my statement of our pressing, and indeed im- 

 perative, needs in this direction should not be considered as resting upon 

 the possibly interested opinion of a student of science merely that I must 

 trouble you with still more quotations. 



Listen to Mr. Balfour : — 



' I do not believe that any man who looks round the equipment of our 

 Universities or medical schools or other places of education can honestly 

 say in his heart that we have done enough to equip research with all the 

 costly armoury which research must have in these modern days. We, 

 the richest country in the world, lag behind Germany, France, Switzer- 

 land, and Italy. Is it not disgraceful ? Are we too poor or are we too 

 stupid ? ' 1 



It is imagined by many who have given no thought to the matter 

 that this I'esearch should be closely allied with some application of science 

 being utilised at the time. Nothing could be further from the truth ; 

 nothing could be more unwise than such a limitation. 



Surely all the laws of Nature will be ultimately of service, and there- 

 fore there is much more future help to be got from a study of the 

 unknown and the unused than we can hope to obtain by continuing the 

 study of that w^hich is pretty well known and utilised already. It was a 

 King of France, Louis XIV., who first commended the study of the 

 meme inutile. The history of modern science shows us more and more as 

 the years roll on the necessity and advantage of such studies, and there- 

 fore the importance of properly endowing them : for the production of new 

 knowledge is a costly and unremunerative pursuit. 



' Nature, May 30, 1901. 



