260 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 817 



It will be necessary for our colleges to 

 offer a more attractive career to their pro- 

 fessors, especially in the enlargement of 

 opportunity for individual freedom of in- 

 tellectual effort. This is more important 

 than any increase in salaries, for the ablest 

 men strive to serve mankind rather than 

 to seek money. It is true, as President 

 Eliot states, that "in the United States the 

 profession of teaching and scientific re- 

 search offers absolutely no money prizes." 

 The middle ages looked complacently upon 

 the beggar student and this spirit survives 

 to-day in many a college trustee's easy tol- 

 erance of the poor salaries paid to famous 

 teachers whose names will be remembered 

 as leaders of our race long after his own 

 has perished; but insufficient though their 

 material support may be, it is of vastly 

 more importance for us to improve their 

 opportunities to be useful in respect to 

 their peculiar individual abilities. This 

 omnipotence of the effective individual is 

 the key-note of the success of the German 

 university system. German students seek 

 individual professors — whereas ours com- 

 monly enter college ignorant of the names 

 and even heedless of the scholarly reputa- 

 tions of their teachers. 



The most serious effects of a bad system 

 are often the most obscurely seen and diffi- 

 cult to detect, and it may safely be said 

 that the most pernicious result of the treat- 

 ment now accorded him who devotes his 

 life to pure science is that it deters many 

 an able young man from entering upon a 

 career of research. When he leaves the 

 university he elects to follow law or com- 

 mercial pursuits, and hopes thereby to gain 

 the competence which will enable him to 

 reenter the ranks of men of science with 

 all the great advantages of personal inde- 

 pendence; but the habits of another life 

 overwhelm him — he never returns and is 

 lost to science. 



Alpked Goldsborough Mater 



THE SHEFFIELD MEETING OF THE BRITISH 



ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT 



OF SCIENCE ' 



On the last day of this month the British 

 Association for the Advancement of Sci- 

 ence will begin at Sheffield its eightieth 

 annual meeting. Only once before in its 

 history has the association met there. That 

 was in 1879, when Professor G. J. Allman, 

 M.D., F.R.S., the then president of the 

 Linnffian Society, assumed the presidency 

 of the association in succession to Mr. 

 W. Spottiswoode, and the list of sectional 

 presidents included such well-known names 

 as Mr. G. Shaw Lefevre (economic sci- 

 ence), Professor Dewar (chemistry), Mr. 

 Clements Markham (geography) and Pro- 

 fessor St. George Mivart (biology). 



The extent to which the problems of to- 

 day were even then attracting attention is 

 shown by the subjects of the evening lec- 

 tures, it being recorded in the annals of 

 the association that Mr. W. Crookes, F.R.S., 

 discoursed on Radiant Matter, Mr. W. E. 

 Ayrton lectured to the operative classes on 

 "Electricity as Motive Power," and Pro- 

 fessor E. Ray Lankester, F.R.S., discussed 

 the question of degeneration. But though 

 the former Sheffield meeting fully sus- 

 tained the high reputation of the associa- 

 tion on its scientific side, orily 1,404 mem- 

 bers and associates were attracted to the 

 meeting. A smaller attendance has been 

 recorded at only seven meetings diiring 

 the past half century. The forthcoming 

 meeting ought to bring together a much 

 larger number of members and associates. 

 The presidential addresses, the lectures, 

 discussions and many of the individual 

 papers promise to be of great interest and 



' The London Times prints annually a forecast 

 of the meetings of the British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, compiled with the coop- 

 eration of the officers of the association. We 

 reprint this sketch as the best available account 

 of the forthcoming meeting. 



