422 



SCIENCE. 



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



Is it not disgraceful 1 Are we too poor or 

 are we too stupid?"* 



It is imagined by many who have given 

 no thought to the matter that this research 

 should be closely allied with some applica- 

 tion of science being utilized at the time. 

 Nothing could be further from the triith; 

 nothing could be more unwise than such 

 a limitation. 



Surely all the laws of nature will be 

 ultimately of service, and", therefore, there 

 is much more future help to be got from 

 a study of the unknown and the unused 

 than we can hope to obtain by continuing 

 the study of that which is pretty well 

 known and utilized already. It was a 

 King of France, Louis XIV., who first com- 

 mended the study of the mime inutile. 

 The history of modern science shows us 

 more and more as the years roll on the 

 necessity and advantage of such studies, 

 and, therefore, the importance of properly 

 endowing them, for the production of new 

 knowledge is a costly and unremunerative 

 pursuit. 



Tears ago we had Faraday apparently 

 wasting his energies and time in playing 

 with needles ; electricity now fills the world. 

 To-day men of science in all lands are 

 studying the emanations of radium; no 

 research could be more abstract; but who 

 knows what advance in human thought 

 may follow or what gigantic world-trans- 

 forming superstructure may eventually be 

 raised on the minute foundation they are 

 laying? 



If we so organize our teaching forces 

 that we can use them at all stages from 

 the gutter to the university to sift out for 

 us potential Faradays— to utilize the men- 

 tal products which otherwise would be 

 wasted— it is only by enabling such men 

 to continue their learning after their teach- 

 ing is over that we shall be able to secure 

 . * Nature, May 30, 1901. 



the greatest advantage which any educa- 

 tional system can afford. 



It is now more than thirty years ago that 

 my attention was specially drawn to this 

 question of the endowment of research, first 

 by conversations with M. Dumas, the per- 

 manent secretary of the Academy of Sci- 

 ences, who honored me by his friendship, 

 and secondly by my association with Sir 

 Benjamin Brodie and Dr. Appleton in 

 their endeavors to call attention to the 

 matter in this country. At that time a 

 general scheme of endo^^^nent suggested 

 by Dumas was being carried out by Duruy. 

 This took the form of the 'Ecole speciale 

 des Hautes Etudes'; it was what our fel- 

 lowship system was meant to be — an en- 

 dowment of the research of post-graduate 

 students in each seat of learning. The 

 French effort did not begin then. 



I may here tell, as it was told me by 

 Dumas, the story of Leon Foucault, whose 

 many discoveries shed a glory on France, 

 and revived French industry in many 

 directions.* In 1851, Avhen Prince Na- 

 poleon was President of the Republic, he 

 sent for Dumas and some of his colleagues 

 and told them that during his stay in Eng- 

 land, and afterwards in his study of the 

 Great Exhibition of that year, he had 

 found there a greater industrial develop- 

 ment than in France, and more applica- 

 tions of science, adding that he wished to 

 know how such a state of things could be 

 at once remedied. The answer was that 

 new applications depended upon new 

 knowledge, and that, therefore, the most 

 direct and immediate way was to find and 

 encourage men who were likely by research 

 in pure science to produce this new Imowl- 

 edge. The Prince President at once asked 

 for names; that of Leon Foucault was the 

 only one mentioned during the first inter- 

 view. 



* See Pi-oc. R. S., Vol. XVII., p. Ixxxiii. 



