762 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 359. 



the benefit of the masses that would be en- 

 tertained. Now, in the matter of higher 

 scientific education, at any rate, it was be- 

 coming more and more widely recognized 

 that its starvation, through attention being 

 exclusively directed to the low-level educa- 

 tion of the masses, was defeating the very 

 ends which this policy had in view. It 

 was rapidly dawning upon many that ' the 

 greatest Empire which the world has ever 

 seen ' could not be maintained unless Eng- 

 lishmen cast off insular prejudices and tra- 

 ditions and made a careful study of those 

 points in which other nations were their 

 superiors, with a view to intelligent adap- 

 tation and development, as distinguished 

 from mere initiation, of their methods to 

 particular needs of the British Isles. If 

 the higher teaching of science was to be 

 really encouraged, the first necessity was 

 that this higher teaching should offer a suf- 

 ficiently attractive career to the man of 

 ambition as well as to the enthusiast. It 

 was not reasonable to fix a definite stipend 

 to a particular chair, and should the best 

 man be required the best price must be 

 paid for him, while, if the British univer- 

 sities were to keep abreast of those of other 

 countries, the chair must be thrown open 

 to all the world. The period of academic 

 study should be extended from three years 

 to five, and the migration of students from 

 one university to another ought to be en- 

 couraged. Higher education and true uni- 

 versities were among the most potent fac- 

 tors in breaking down the hereditary strati- 

 fication of society and in minimizing the 

 advantages depending upon the accident of 

 birth, so that, with the greatly enhanced 

 facilities which must be provided for stu- 

 dents without means, they should afford in 

 the future, even more than they had done 

 in the past, an avenue for the humblest boy 

 of talent to that position which he was, by 

 natural endowment and by his own exer- 

 tion, best fitted to fill in the interests of 



the state. British chemical work at the 

 dawn of the twentieth century is satisfac- 

 tory in many ways, for while almost all 

 the great problems are being worked at, 

 some of the recent progress of chemical 

 science is more or less specifically British, 

 e. g., the isolated labors of Dr. Perkin in 

 the field of magnetic rotatory power ; Sir 

 William Crookes's exploration of the phe- 

 nomena occurring in high vacua ; the re- 

 searches of Abney, Eussell and Hartley 

 on the absorption spectra of organic com- 

 pounds ; the investigations of Harold Dixon 

 and Brereton Baker of the behavior of sub- 

 stances in the complete absence of mois- 

 ture ; the extension by Pope and Smiles of 

 asymmetric atoms ; the near approach to 

 the absolute zero of temperature by Dewar ; 

 and those marvelous discoveries of Ray- 

 leigh and Ramsay which have not only in- 

 troduced us to five new aerial elements, but 

 have revealed the existence of a hitherto 

 unknown type of matter, which is appar- 

 ently incapable of entering into chemical 

 combination at all. 



Af ter the usual voteof thanks, moved by Sir 

 Henry Roscoe, F.R.S., and seconded by Dr. 

 T. E. Thorpe, F.R.S., the Section proceeded 

 to the reading and discussion of papers. 

 Dr. W. T. Lawrence brought forward the 

 question of duty-free alcohol for chemical 

 laboratories. He pointed out that workers 

 in England were placed at a great disadvan- 

 tage in comparison with workers in Conti- 

 nental laboratories, owing to the charge 

 made on alcohol which was required in very 

 large quantities in research. Abroad, when 

 duties were exacted, they were remitted in 

 the case of chemical laboratories so as not 

 to impede the progress of the work of in- 

 vestigation. It was stated by others that 

 some researches had been stopped half-way 

 on account of this extra expense. Professor 

 A. Michael, of Tufts College, Mass., ex- 

 plained that in the United States the duties 

 were remitted when application was duly 



