September 29, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



455 



government on immediate ends lias dis- 

 tracted it from the urgent reforms called 

 for by the very evils that are the root cause 

 of many of the greatest difficulties it has 

 had to overcome. It is a lamentable fact 

 that beyond any nation of the west the bulk 

 of our people remains sunk not in compara- 

 tive ignorance only — for that is less diffi- 

 cult to overcome — but in intellectual 

 apathy. The dull incuria of the parents 

 is reflected in the children, and the desire 

 for the acquirement of knowledge in our 

 schools and colleges is appreciably less 

 than elsewhere. So, too, with the scientific 

 side of education, it is not so much the ac- 

 tual amount of science taught that is in 

 question — insufficient as that is — as the in- 

 stillation of the scientific spirit itself— the 

 perception of method, the sacred thirst for 

 investigation. 



But can we yet despair of the educa- 

 tional future of a people that has risen to 

 the full height of the great emergency with 

 which they were confronted? Can we 

 doubt that, out of the crucible of fiery 

 trial, a New England is already in the 

 moulding ? 



"We must all bow before the hard neces- 

 sity of the moment. Of much we can not 

 judge. Great patience is demanded. But 

 let us, who still have the opportunity of 

 doing so, at least prepare for the even 

 more serious struggle that must ensue 

 against the enemy in our midst, that gnaws 

 our vitals. We have to deal with ignor- 

 ance, apathy, the non-scientific mental atti- 

 tude, the absorption of popular interest in 

 sports and amusements. 



And what, meanwhile, is the attitude of 

 those in power — of our government, still 

 more of our permanent officials? A cheap 

 epigram is worn threadbare in order to 

 justify the ingrained distrust of expert, in 

 other words of scientific, advice on the 

 part of our public offices. We hear, in- 

 deed, of ' ' Commissions ' ' and ' ' Enquiries, ' ' 



but the inveterate attitude of our rulers 

 towards the higher interests that we are 

 here to promote is too clearly shown by a 

 single episode. It is those higher interests 

 that are the first to be thrown to the wolves. 

 All are agreed that special treasures should 

 be stored in positions of safety, but at a 

 time when it might have been thought de- 

 sirable to keep open every avenue of popu- 

 lar instruction and of intelligent diversion, 

 the galleries of our National Museum at 

 Bloomsbury were entirely closed for the 

 sake of the paltriest saving — three minutes, 

 it was calculated, of the cost of the war to 

 the British treasury! That some, indeed, 

 were left open elsewhere was not so much 

 due to the enlightened sympathy of our 

 politicians, as to their alarmed interests in 

 view of the volume of intelligent protest. 

 Our friends and neighbors across the Chan- 

 nel, under incomparably greater stress, 

 have acted in a very different spirit. 



It will be a hard struggle for the friends 

 of science and education and the air is 

 thick with mephitic vapors. Perhaps the 

 worst economy to which we are to-day re- 

 duced by our former lack of preparedness 

 is the economy of truth. Heaven knows ! — 

 it may be a necessary penalty. But its re- 

 sults are evil. Vital facts that concern our 

 national well-being, others that even affect 

 the cause of a lasting peace, are constantly 

 suppressed by official action. The negative 

 character of the process at work which 

 conceals its operation from the masses 

 makes it the more insidious. We live in a 

 murky atmosphere amidst the suggestion 

 of the false, and there seems to be a real 

 danger that the recognition of truth as 

 itself a tower of strength may suffer an 

 eclipse. 



It is at such a time and under these ad- 

 verse conditions that we, whose object it is 

 to promote the advancement of science, are 

 called upon to act. It is for us to see to it 

 that the lighted torch handed down to us 



