490 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVIII. No. 459. 



what oblivions of their responsibilities and 

 their opportunities. 



I have no doubt that it will at once be 

 said that meteorology is supported by gov- 

 ernment funds, and that alma mater must 

 keep her maternal affection and her exig- 

 uous income for subjects that do not enjoy 

 state support. I do not wish just now to 

 discuss the complexities of alma mater's 

 housekeeping. I know she does not adopt 

 the same attitude with regard to astronomy, 

 physics, geology, mineralogy, zoology or 

 botany, but let that pass. From the point 

 of view of the advancement of science I 

 should like to protest against the idea that 

 the care of certain branches of science by 

 the state and by the universities can be re- 

 garded as alternative. The advancement 

 of science demands the cooperation of both 

 in their appropriate ways. As regards 

 meteorology, in my experience, which I 

 acknowledge is limited, the general atti- 

 tude towards the department seems to be 

 dictated by the consideration that it must 

 be left severely alone in order to avoid the 

 vicious precedent of doing what is, or per- 

 haps what is thought to be, government 

 work without getting government pay, and 

 the result is an almost monastic isolation. 



There is too much isolation of scientific 

 agencies in this country. You have re- 

 cently established a national physical lab- 

 oratory the breath of whose life is its as- 

 sociation with the working world of physics 

 and engineering, and you have put it — 

 where? At Cambridge, or anywhere else 

 where young physicists and engineers are 

 being trained? No; but in the peaceful 

 seclusion of a palace in the country, al- 

 most equidistant from Cambridge, Oxford, 

 London and everywhere else. You have es- 

 tablished a meteorological office, and you 

 have put it in the academic seclusion of 

 Victoria Street. What monastic isolation 

 is good for I do not know. I am perfectly 



certain it is not good for the scientific 

 progress of meteorology. How can one 

 hope for effective scientific development 

 without some intimate association with the 

 institutions of the country which stand 

 for intellectual development and the prog- 

 ress of science? 



I could imagine an organization which by 

 association of the universities with a cen- 

 tral office would enable this country, with 

 its colonies and dependencies, to build up 

 a system of meteorological investigation 

 worthy of its unexampled opportunities. 

 But the cooperation must be real and not 

 one-sided. Meteorology, which depends 

 upon the combination of observations of 

 various kinds from all parts of the world, 

 must be international, and a government 

 department in some form or other is indis- 

 pensable. No university could do the work. 

 But whatever form government service 

 takes, it will always have some of those 

 characteristics which, from the point of 

 view of research, may be called bondage. 

 On the other hand, research, to be produc- 

 tive, must be free with an academic free- 

 dom, free to succeed or fail, free to be re- 

 munerative or unremunerative, without 

 regard to government audits or House of 

 Commons control. Research looks to the 

 judgment of posterity with a faith which 

 is not unworthy of the churches, and which 

 is not among those excellent moral quali- 

 ties embodied in the controller and auditor- 

 general. Die academische Freiheit is not 

 the characteristic of a government depart- 

 ment. The opportunity which gave to the 

 world the ' Philosophite Naturalis Prin- 

 cipia' was not due to the state subvention 

 of the deputy mastership of the mint, but 

 to the modest provision of a professorship 

 by one Henry Lucas, of whose pious bene- 

 faction Cambridge has made such wonder- 

 ful use in her Lucasian professors. 



The future of meteorology lies, I believe. 



