420 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVIII. No. 457. 



withoiit hesitation, duplicate the Navy Bill 

 of 1888-9; do at once for brain-power 

 what we so successfnlly did then for sea- 

 powez'. 



Let 24,000,OOOL be set apart from one 

 asset, our national wealth, to increase the 

 other, brain-power. Let it be assigned and 

 borrowed as it is wanted; there will be 

 a capital sum for new buildings to be 

 erected in the next five or ten years, the 

 interest of the remainder to go towards 

 increased annual endowments. 



There need be no difficulty about alloca- 

 ting money to the various institutions. Let 

 each university make up its mind as to 

 which rank of the German universities it 

 wishes to emulate. When this claim has 

 b?en agreed to, the sums necessary to pro- 

 . vide the buildings and teaching staff of 

 that class of university should be granted 

 without demur. 



It is the case of battleships over again, 

 au'"! money need not be spent more freely 

 in one case than in the other. 



Let me at once say that this sum is not 

 to be regarded as practically gone when 

 spent, as in the case of a short-lived iron- 

 clad. It is a loan which will bear a high 

 rate of interest. This is not my opinion 

 merely ; it is the opinion of those concerned 

 in great industrial enterprises and fully 

 alive to the origin and effects of the pres- 

 ent condition of things. 



I have been careful to point out that the 

 statement that our industries are suffering 

 from our relative neglect of science does 

 not rest on my authority. But if this be 

 true, then if our annual production is less 

 by only two millions than it might have 

 been, having two millions less to divide 

 would be equivalent to oiir having forty or 

 fifty millions less capital than we should 

 have had if we had been more scientific. 



Sir John Brunner, in a speech connected 

 with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medi- 



cine, stated recently that if we as a nation 

 were now to borrow ten millions of money 

 in order to help science by putting up 

 buildings and endowing professors, we 

 should get the money back in the course of 

 a generation a hundredfold. He added 

 that there was no better investment for a 

 business man than the encouragement of 

 science, and that every penny he possessed 

 had come from the application of science 

 to eommei'ce. 



According to Sir Robert Giffen, the 

 United Kingdom as a going concern was in 

 1901 worth 16,000,000,000L 



Were we to put aside 24,000,0001. for 

 gradually organizing, building and endow- 

 ing new universities, and making the exist- 

 ing ones more efficient, we should still be 

 worth 15,976,000,000L, ' a property well 

 worth defending by all the means, and chief 

 among these brain-power, we can command. 

 If it be held that this, or anything like it, 

 is too great a price to pay for correcting 

 past carelessness or stupidity, the reply is 

 that the 120,000,000J. recently spent on the 

 navy, a sum five times greater, has been 

 spent to correct a sleepy blunder, not one 

 whit more inimical to the future welfare 

 of our country than that which has brought 

 about our present educational position. 

 We had not sufficiently recognized what 

 other nations had done in the way of ship 

 building, just as until now we have not 

 recognized what they have been doing in 

 university building. 



Further, I am told that the sum of 24,- 

 OOOjOOOL is less than half the amount by 

 which Germany is yearly enriched by hav- 

 ing improved upon our chemical industries, 

 owing to our lack of scientific training. 

 Many other industries have been attacked 

 in the same way since, but taking this one 

 instance alone, if we had spent this money 

 fifty years ago, when the Prince Consort 

 first called attention to our backwardness. 



