542 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 405. 



at the Royal Institution during the past 

 hundred years is a fairly definite quantity 

 in the mind of every man really conver- 

 sant with scientific affairs. I have ob- 

 tained from the books accurate statistics 

 of the total expenditure on experimental 

 inquiry and public demonstration for the 

 whole of the nineteenth century. The 

 items are : 

 Professors' salaries — physics and cliem- 



istry f 54,600 



Laboratory expenditure 24,430 



Assistants' salaries 21,590 



Total for one hundred years £100,620 



In addition, the members and friends of 

 the Institution have contributed to a fund 

 for exceptional expenditure for Bxpei-i- 

 mental Research the sum of 9,580L It 

 should also be mentioned that a Civil List 

 pension of 300L was granted to Faraday 

 in 1853, and was continued during twenty- 

 seven years of active work and five years 

 of retirement. Thirty-two years in all, 

 at 300L a year, making a sum of 9,600L, 

 representing the national donation, which, 

 added to the amount of expenditure just 

 stated, brings up the total cost of a century 

 of scientific work in the laboratories of the 

 Royal Institution, together with public 

 demonstrations, to 119,800L, or an aver- 

 age of l,200t. per annum. I think if you 

 recall the names and achievements of 

 Young, Davy, Faraday and TyndaH, you 

 will come to the conclusion that the ex- 

 ceptional man is about the cheapest of 

 natiiral products. It is a popular fallacy 

 that the Royal Institution is handsomely 

 endowed. On the contrary, it has often 

 been in financial straits; and since its 

 foundation by Count Rumford its only 

 considerable bequests have been one from 

 Thomas G. Hodgidns, an American citizen, 

 for Experimental Research, and that of 

 John Fuller for endowing with 951. a year 

 the chairs of Chemistry and Physiology. 

 In this connection the Davy-Faraday 



Laboratory, founded by the liberality of 

 Dr. Ludwig Mond, will naturally occur to 

 many minds. But thoxigh affiliated to the 

 Royal Institution, with, I hope, reciprocal 

 indirect advantages, that Laboratory is 

 financially independent and its endow- 

 ments are devoted to its own special pur- 

 pose, which is to provide opportunity to 

 prosecute independent research for worthy 

 and approved applicants of all nationali- 

 ties. The main reliance of the Royal Insti- 

 tution has always been, and still remains, 

 upon the contributions of its members, 

 and upon corresponding sacrifices in the 

 form of time and labor by its professors. 

 It may be doubted whether we can reason- 

 ably count upon a succession of scientific 

 men able and willing to make sacrifices 

 which the conditions of modern life tend 

 to render increasingly burdensome. 

 Modern science is in fact in something of 

 a dilemma.' Devotion to abstract research 

 upon small means is becoming always 

 harder to maintain, while at the same time 

 the number of wealthy independent search- 

 ers after truth and patrons of science of 

 the style of Joule, Spottiswoode and De 

 la Rue is apparently becoming smaller. 

 The installations required by the refine- 

 ments of modern science are continually 

 becoming more costly, so that upon aU 

 grounds it would appear that without en- 

 dowments of the land provided by Dr. 

 Carnegie the outlook for disinterested re- 

 search is rather dark. On the other hand, 

 these endowments, unless carefully ad- 

 ministered, might obviously tend to impair 

 the single-minded devotion to the search 

 after truth for its own sake, to which sci- 

 ence has owed almost every memorable 

 advance made in the past. The Carnegie 

 Institution will dispose in a year of as much 

 money as the members of the Royal In- 

 stitution have expended in a century upon 

 its purely scientific work. It will at least 

 be interesting to note how far the output 



