976 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI No. 416. 



ciety. Though the words of the charter 

 granted by Charles II. were wide enough 

 legally to include historical and philo- 

 sophical studies, yet, as a matter of fact, 

 with some few exceptions in early days, 

 the work of the Royal Society had been 

 confined for two centuries and a half to 

 the studies with which it was now occu- 

 pied. It would be their pleasant duty, as 

 the Acting Academy of the International 

 Association of Academies, to recommend 

 the new society for admission into the 

 'Association of Academies' as the body 

 representing philosophico-historical science 

 in the United Kingdom. 



After referring to the National Antarctic 

 Expedition, and the arrival of the Morn- 

 ing in New Zealand, which place she was 

 leaving this month in search of the Dis- 

 covery, the president referred to the estab- 

 lishment of a National Physical Labora- 

 tory, the opening of which had taken place 

 since the last anniversary. He then de- 

 scribed the work of the Physikalisch-tech- 

 nische Reichsanstalt, of Berlin, which was 

 largely due to the scientific foresight of 

 von Helmholtz. The original cost of the 

 institute was over £200,000, and its yearly 

 maintenance was not less than £17,000. 

 During the five years that it had been at 

 work its influence upon the science and the 

 manufacturing interests of Germany had 

 been most remarkable. It was, therefore, 

 with feelings of high satisfaction that he 

 had to record the opening in March last 

 of a similar national institution in this 

 country. The sum voted by the govern- 

 ment for the physical laboratory, an insti- 

 tution second to none in its national im- 

 portance, was the very modest one of £13,- 

 000 for the buildings and equipment, and 

 an annual grant of £4,000 for five years in 

 aid of the expenses of conducting the work 

 of the institution. It was, therefore, 'to 

 the liberality of the public,' as the Prince 

 of Wales at the opening pointed out. 'that 



we must look not only for money, but also 

 for presents of machinery and other appli- 

 ances. ' 



The supreme necessity in this coimtry 

 of a more systematic application of scien- 

 tific methods, both in theory and in prac- 

 tice, to our manufactures and industries, 

 which was so wisely insisted upon by the 

 Prince of Wales on the occasion of his ad- 

 mission to the Fellowship of the Society, 

 and again in his address at the opening of 

 the National Laboratory, had since been 

 confirmed and enforced in a remarkable 

 way by the individual testimonies of thir- 

 teen Fellows of this Society in the evidence 

 which they recently gave from their own 

 knowledge and experience, either as teach- 

 ers of science or as leaders and technical 

 advisers in manufactories or commercial 

 undertakings, before a committee of the 

 London Technical Board. The evidence 

 seemed clear that the present inapprecia- 

 tive attitude of our public men, and of the 

 influential classes of society generally, 

 towards scientific knowledge and methods 

 of thought must be attributed to the too 

 close adherence of our older universities, 

 and through them of our public schools, 

 and all other schools in the country down- 

 wards, to the traditional methods of teach- 

 ing of medieval times. With the experi- 

 ence of Germanj' and the United States 

 before \is, the direction in which we should 

 look for a remedy for this state of things 

 would seem to be for both the teacher and 

 the student to be less shackled by the 

 hampering fetters of examinational re- 

 strictions, and so for the professor to have 

 greater freedom as to what he shoiild 

 teach, and the student greater freedom as 

 to what line of study and research he might 

 select as being best suited to his tastes and 

 powers. In the United States the candi- 

 date for the highest degree, Ph.D., must 

 spend at least two years, after obtaining 

 his bachelor degree, in carrying out an 



