544 REPORT— 1903. 



On the otber hand, research, to he productive, must be free with an academic 

 freedom, free to succeed or fail, free to be remunerative or unremunerative, with- 

 out regard to Government audits or House of Commons control. Research looks 

 to the judgment of posterity with a faith which is not unworthy of the Churches, 

 and which is not among those excellent moral qualities embodied in the Controller 

 and Auditor General. Die academische Freiheit is not the characteristic of a 

 Government department. The opportunity which gave to the world the ' Philo- 

 sophiae Naturalis Principia' was not due to tlie State subvention of the Deputy 

 Mastership of the Mint, but to the modest provision of a professorship by 

 one Hemy Lucas, of whose pious benefaction Cambridge has made such wonderful 

 use in her Lucasian professors. 



The future of Meteorology lies, I believe, in the association of the universities 

 with a central department. I could imagine that Liverpool or Glasgow might 

 take a special interest in the meteorology of the sea ; they might even find the 

 means of maintaining a floating observatory ; and when I say that we know 

 practically nothing of the distribution of rainfall over the sea, and we want to 

 know everything about the air above the sea, you will agree with me that there is 

 room for such an enterprise. Edinburgh might, from its association with Ben 

 Nevis, be desirous of developing the investigation of the upper air over our land ; 

 in Cambridge might be found the author of a book, on the principles of atmospheric 

 physics, worthy of its Latin predecessor ; and for London I can assign no limited 

 possibilities. 



If such an association were established I should not need to reply to Professc r 

 Schuster's suggestion for the suppression of observations. The real requirement 

 of the time is not fewer observations, but more men and women to interpret tbem. 

 I have no doubt that the tirst expression of such an organisation would be one of 

 recognition and acknowledgment of the patience, the care, the skill, and the public 

 spirit — all of them sound scientific characteristics — which furnish at their own 

 expense those multitudes of observations. The accumulated readings nppal by 

 their volume, it is true, but they are, and must be, the foundation upon which the 

 scientific structure will be built. 



So far as this country is concerned when one puts what is in comparison with 

 what might be it must bo acknowledged that the tendency to pessimistic com- 

 plaisance is very strong. Yet 1 ought not to allow the retJections to which my 

 predecessor's Address naturally give rise to be too depres.sing. I should remember 

 that, as Dr. Hellmann said some years ago, Meteorology has no frontiers, and each 

 step in its progress is the result of efforts of various kinds in many countries, our 

 own not excluded. In the presence of our guests to-day, some of whom know by 

 practical experience the advantages of the association of academic liberty with 

 otticial routine, remembering the recent conspicuous successes in the inveftigation 

 of the upper air in France, Germany, Austria, Russia, and the United States, 

 and the prospect of fruitful co-operation of meteorology with other branches of 

 cosmical physics, I may well recall the words of Clough : 



iia.j not, the struggle nought availeth . . . 

 And as things have been, thoy remain. 



If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars ; 



It may be, in yon smoke concealed 

 Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, 



And, but for you, possess one field. 



For wbi]e the tired waves, vainly breaking, 



.Seem here no painful inch to gain, 

 I'ar back, througli creeks and inlets making, 



Comes silent, flooding in, the main. 



An 1 not l)y eastern windows only, 



When daylight comes, comes in the light ; 



In from, the sun cUmbs slow, how slowly, 

 But v\ estward, look, the land is bright. 



