September 16, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



233 



tional encouragement to science and to aid in 

 its organization. 



Brewster had a lofty ideal of the place of 

 science in the intellectual life of a community, 

 and of the just position of the man of science 

 in the social scale. In well-weighed words, 

 the outcome of matured experience and of an 

 intimate knowledge of the working of Euro- 

 pean institutions created for the advancement 

 of science and the diffusion of knowledge, he 

 pleaded for the establishment of a national 

 institution in Britain, possessing a class of 

 resident members who should devote them- 

 selves wholly to science — with a place and sta- 

 tion in society the most respectable and inde- 

 pendent — " free alike," as Playf air put it, 

 " from the embarrassments of poverty or the 

 temptations of wealth." Such men, " ordained 

 by the state to the undivided functions of sci- 

 ence," would, he contended, do more and better 

 work than those who snatch an hour or two 

 from their daily toil or nightly rest. 



This ideal of " combining what is insulated, 

 and uniting in one great institution the living 

 talent which is in active but undirected and 

 unbefriended exercise around us," was not at- 

 tained during Brewster's time; .nor, notwith- 

 standing the reiteration of incontrovertible 

 argument during the past seventy years, has it 

 been reached in our own. 



I have been led to dwell on Sir David Brew- 

 ster's association with this question of the re- 

 lations of the state towards research for sev- 

 eral reasons. Although he was not the first 

 to raise it — for Davy more than a century ago 

 made it the theme of presidential addresses, 

 and brought his social influence to bear in the 

 attempt to enlist the practical sympathy of 

 the government — no one more consistently 

 urged its national importance, or supported his 

 case with a more powerful advocacy, than the 

 principal of the University of Edinburgh. It 

 is only seemly, therefore, that on this particular 

 occasion, and in this city of his adoption, 

 where he spent so much of his intellectual 

 energy, I should specially allude to it. More- 

 over, we can never forget what this association 

 owes to his large and fruitful mind. Every 

 man is a debtor to his profession, from which 



he gains countenance and profit. That Brew- 

 ster was an ornament to his is acknowledged 

 by every lover of learning. That he endeavored 

 to be a help to it was gratefully recognized 

 during his lifetime. After his death it was 

 said of him that the improved position of men 

 of science in our time is chiefly due to his 

 exertions and his example. 



I am naturally led to connect the meeting 

 of 1850 with a still more memorable gathering 

 of this association in this city. In August, 

 18Y1 — ^just over half a century ago — the British 

 Association again assembled in Edinburgh 

 under the presidency of Lord Kelvin — then 

 Sir William Thomson. It was a historic 

 occasion by reason of the address which inau- 

 gurated its proceedings. Lord Kelvin, with 

 characteristic force and insistence, still fur- 

 ther elaborated the theme which had been so 

 signal a feature of Sir David Brewster's ad- 

 dress twenty years previously : " Whether we 

 look to the honor of England," he said, " as a 

 nation which ought always to be the foremost 

 in promoting physical science, or to those vast 

 economical advantages which must accrue 

 from such establishments, we can not but feel 

 that expermiental research ought to be made 

 with us an object of national concern, and not 

 left, as hitherto, exclusively to the private en- 

 terprise of self-sacrificing amateurs, and the 

 necessarily inconsecutive action of our present 

 governmental departments and of casual cow- 

 mittees." 



Lord Kelvin, as might have been anticipated . 

 pleaded more especially for the institution of 

 physical observatories and laboratories for ex- 

 perimental research, to be conducted by quali- 

 fied persons, whose duties should be not teach- 

 ing, but experimenting. Such institutions as 

 then existed, he pointed out, only afforded a 

 very partial and inadequate solution of a 

 national need. They were, for the most part, 

 " absolutely destitute of means, material, or 

 personnel for advancing science, except at the 

 expense of volunteers, or of securing that 

 volunteers should be found to continue such 

 little work as could then be carried on." 



There were, however, even then, signs that 

 the bread cast upon the waters was slowly re- 



