August 24, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



237 



the mint held by Isaac Newton, and finally 

 by Thomas Graham, has been abolished and 

 its salary appropriated by non-scientific 

 officials. Only a few years ago it was with 

 great difficulty that the government of the 

 day was prevented from assigning the di- 

 rectorship of Kew Gardens to a young man 

 of influence devoid of all knowledge of 

 botany ! 



One of the most solid tests of the esteem 

 and value attached to scientific progress by 

 the community is the dedication of large 

 sums of money to scientific purposes by its 

 wealthier members. We know that in the 

 United States such gifts are not infre- 

 quent ; they are rare in this country. It is, 

 therefore, with especial pleasure that I call 

 your attention to a great gift to science in 

 this country made only a few years ago. 

 Lord Iveagh has endowed the Lister Insti- 

 tute, for researches in connection with the 

 prevention of disease, with no less a sum 

 than a quarter of a million pounds sterling. 

 This is the largest gift ever made to science 

 in this country, and will be productive of 

 great benefit to humanity. The Lister In- 

 stitute took its origin in the surplus of a 

 fund raised by Sir James Whitehead when 

 Lord Mayor, some sixteen years ago, for 

 the purpose of making a gift to the Pasteur 

 Institute in Paris, where many English 

 patients had been treated, without charge, 

 after being bitten by rabid dogs. Three 

 thousand pounds was sent to M, Pasteur, 

 and the surplus of a few hundred pounds 

 was made the starting-point of a fund 

 which grew, by one generous gift and an- 

 other, until the Lister Institute on the 

 Thames Embankment at Chelsea was set 

 up on a site presented by that good and 

 high-minded man, the late Duke of West- 

 minster, 



Many other noble gifts to scientific re- 

 search have been made in this country dur- 

 ing the period on which we are looking 

 back. Let us be thankful for them, and 



admire the wise munificence of the donors. 

 But none the less we must refuse to rely 

 entirely on such liberality for the develop- 

 ment of the army of science, which has to 

 do battle for mankind against the obvious 

 disabilities and sufferings which afflict us 

 and can be removed by knowledge. The 

 organization and finance of this army 

 should be the care of the state. 



It is a fact which many of us who have 

 observed it regret very keenly, that there 

 is to-day a less widespread interest than 

 formerly in natural history and general 

 science, outside the strictly professional 

 arena of the school and university. The 

 field naturalists among the squires and the 

 country parsons seem nowadays not to be 

 so numerous and active in their delightful 

 pursuits as formerly, and the mechanics' 

 institutes and lecture societies of the days 

 of Lord Brougham have given place, to a 

 very large extent, to musical performances, 

 bioscopes and other entertainments, more 

 diverting, but not really more capable of 

 giving pleasure than those in which science 

 was popularized. No doubt the organiza- 

 tion and professional character of scientific 

 work are to a large extent the cause of this 

 falling-off in its attraction for amateurs. 

 But perhaps that decadence is also due in 

 some measure to the increased general de- 

 mand for a kind of manufactured gaiety, 

 readily sent out in these days of easy trans- 

 port from the great centers of fashionable 

 amusement to the provinces and rural dis- 

 tricts. 



In conclusion, I would say a word in 

 reference to the associations of our place 

 of meeting, the birthplace of our society. 

 It seems to me not inappropriate that a 

 society for the advancement of science 

 Should have taken its origin under the walls 

 of York Minster, and that the clergy of the 

 great cathedral should have stood by its 

 cradle. It is not true that there is an es- 

 sential antagonism between the scientific 



