August 24, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



251 



of fifty, with his abilities fully tested and his 

 scientific reputation fully established, should 

 be treated on the same footing as a clerk who 

 might never have done anything but copy 

 documents and perhaps post a ledger. In 

 this country there used to be a way of mitiga- 

 ting the absurdity of the system. The treasury 

 could in such cases add twenty-one years to 

 the service for pension purposes, thereby en- 

 abling a man joining late in life on some 

 special ground to be put in a position not 

 much worse than that of an undistinguished 

 copyist joining early. But in recent years the 

 treasury has curtailed its own powers and can 

 not now add more than seven years. Were 

 another Newton to-day made master of the 

 mint, and were he to be dismissed or to be- 

 come incapable of performing his duties five 

 years afterwards, he would receive at the 

 most a pension calculated on twelve years' 

 service. That is how this nation enlists 

 knowledge and ability for the carrying on of 

 its affairs. But that is not by any means the 

 worst it can do. A man may serve it like 

 Lord Milner for a long term of years in diffi- 

 cult and arduous positions, but if he is not 

 technically in the civil service he may be dis- 

 missed into private life at an age when other 

 remunerative employment is unattainable, 

 without any compensation at all. 



No explanation has been vouchsafed to Dr. 

 Lankester for the cavalier treatment he has 

 received. His eminence in his own scientific 

 field is unquestionable, and has been abun- 

 dantly recognized by those most competent to 

 judge both abroad and at home. Nor is he 

 one of the unpractical students who do not 

 know how to handle business. On the con- 

 trary, he has all the qualities required in an 

 efficient administrator. We are thrown back, 

 therefore, upon reasons of a more personal 

 kind. He was appointed by the three prin- 

 cipal trustees in whom power of appointment 

 and dismissal is vested by statute. But the 

 appointment was resented by some active 

 members of the standing committee, which 

 has taken the first opportunity to reverse it. 

 It may be presumed that he has not succeeded 

 in conciliating those who were opposed to his 



appointment, and as he holds his own views 

 rather strongly and is not too patient with 

 what presents itself to him as stupidity, it is 

 even possible that he has not tried very hard 

 to conciliate them. In most situations in life 

 it is necessary to reckon with these personal 

 factors, which indeed may be raised to the 

 dignity of impersonal factors in circumstances 

 where harmonious cooperation among many 

 becomes as important as the most commanding 

 ability in one man. If the difficulty in the 

 present case is of this order, it may now be 

 regarded as insuperable. Dr. Lankester him- 

 self would probably recognize that, whatever 

 the causes, his usefulness at the museum and 

 his own comfort in remaining there are alike 

 at an end. But, though this may be a good 

 reason for the severance of his connection with 

 the museum, it is no reason at all for turning 

 him adrift at the age of sixty with a derisory 

 compensation calculated upon rules intended 

 for a totally different purpose. If he does not 

 '■ get on ' with the other people in the museum 

 probably there are faults on both sides, and 

 too much zeal for science may have been one 

 of his. In any case failure to get on with 

 somebody else is not by a very long way mis- 

 conduct of the kind that forfeits a position. 

 He gave up a secure position at Oxford to 

 take the directorship, trusting to a general but 

 not well-founded impression that the state 

 may be relied upon to treat its servants with 

 generosity. There are not many things open 

 to a man of sixty; and there are few suitable 

 to the student of biology. The museum may 

 manage its affairs in its own way, but it is a 

 disgrace to the nation to treat a distinguished 

 man of science, entering its service in excep- 

 tional circumstances, as if he were an ordinary 

 clerk, merely because an absurd technicality 

 places both in the same category. 



SUMMER MEETING AND COLLOQUIUM OF 



THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL 



SOCIETY. 



The thirteenth summer meeting of the so- 

 ciety will be held at Yale University, New 

 Haven, Conn., on Monday and Tuesday, Sep- 

 temper 3 and 4. 



A colloquium will open on Wednesday, Sep- 



