ADDRESS. 23 



Years ago we had Faraday apparently wasting his energies and 

 time in playing with needles ; electricity now fills the world. To-day 

 men of science in all lands are studying the emanations of radium ; 

 no research could be more abstract ; but who knows what advance 

 in human thought may follow or what gigantic world-transforming 

 superstructure may eventually be raised on the minute foundation they 

 are laying ? 



If we so organise our teaching forces that we can use them at all 

 stages, from the gutter to the University, to sift out for us potential Fara- 

 ways — to utilise the mental products which otherwise would be wasted — 

 it is only by enabling such men to continue their learning after their 

 teaching is over that we shall be able to secure the greatest advantage 

 which any educational system can afford. 



It is now more than thirty years ago that my attention was specially 

 drawn to this question of the endowment of research — first, by conversa- 

 tions with M. Dumas, the permanent secretary of the Academy of 

 Sciences, who honoured me by his friendship ; and, secondly, by my 

 association with Sir Benjamin Brodie and Dr. Appleton in their en- 

 deavours to call attention to the matter in this country. At that time 

 a general scheme of endowment suggested by Dumas was being carried 

 out by Duruy. This took the form of the ' Ecole speciale des Hautes 

 Etudes ' ; it was what our fellowship system was meant to be — an 

 endowment of the research of post-graduate students in each seat of 

 learning. The French effort did not begin then. 



I may here tell, as it was told me by Dumas, the story of L^on 

 Foucault, whose many discoveries shed a glory on France and revived 

 French industry in many directions.^ In 1851, when Prince Napoleon 

 was President of the Republic, he sent for Dumas and some of his 

 colleagues, and told them that during his stay in England, and after- 

 wards in his study of the Great Exhibition of that year, he had found 

 there a greater industrial development than in France, and more applica- 

 tions of science, adding that he wished to know how such a state of things 

 could be at once remedied. The answer was that new applications 

 depended upon new knowledge, and that therefore the most direct and 

 immediate way was to find and encourage men who were likely by 

 research in pure science to produce this new knowledge. The Prince- 

 President at once asked for names ; that of Leon Foucault was the only 

 one mentioned during the first interview. 



Some time afterwards — to be exact, at about eleven in the morn- 

 ing of December 2 — Dumas's servant informed him that there was 

 a gentleman in the hall named Foucault, who wished to see him, and he 

 added that he appeared to be very ill. When shown into the study, 

 Foucault was too agitated to speak, and was blind with tears. His reply 

 to Dumas's soothing questions was to take from his pockets two rolls of 



• See Proc, It, S; vol, xvji, p. Ixxxiii, 



