CHAPTER X 

 1887 



The first half of 1887, like that of the preceding year, 

 was chequered by constant returns of ill-health. " As one 

 gets older," he writes in a New Year's letter to Sir J. Don- 

 nelly, " hopes for oneself get more moderate, and I shall 

 be content if next year is no worse than the last. Blessed 

 are the poor in spirit ! " The good effects of the visit to 

 Arolla had not outlasted the winter, and from the end ©f 

 February he was obliged to alternate between London and 

 the Isle of Wight. 



Nevertheless, he managed to attend to a good deal of 

 business in the intervals between his periodic flights to the 

 country, for he continued to serve on the Royal Society 

 Council, to do some of the examining work at South Ken- 

 sington, and to fight for the establishment of adequate Tech- 

 nical Education in England. He attended the Senate and 

 various committees of the London University and of the 

 Marine Biological Association. 



Several letters refer to the proposal — it was the Jubilee 

 year — to commemorate the occasion by the establishment 

 of the Imperial Institute. To this he gladly gave his sup- 

 port ; not indeed to the merely social side ; but in the oppor- 

 tunity of organising the practical applications of science to 

 industry he saw the key to success in the industrial war 

 of the future. Seconding the resolution proposed by Lord 

 Rothschild at the Mansion House meeting on January 12, 

 he spoke of the relation of industry to science — the two great 

 developments of this century. Formerly practical men 

 looked askance at science, " but within the last thirty years, 

 more particularly," continues the report in Nature (vol. 

 160 



