474 The Domestication of Science. 



though rich in funds, has sunk into a state of intellectual paralysis 

 — it is in Albemarle Street only, that any association of the kind 

 does really serviceable work ; and even there the pay of the 

 professors does not equal that of a first-class bookkeeper, or an 

 attorney's managing clerk. In 1801 Davy was secured for a 

 hundred guineas a year, " one room, coals, and candles." 

 Faraday began with twenty-five shillings a week, and it was 

 only in 1853 that his remuneration reached the annual value of 

 £300. Tyndall was captured in 1853 for the small sum of £200, 

 and in 1859 his income was raised to £300. We mention these 

 facts as specimens of the difficulties which still beset the pur- 

 suit of science, for although considerable incomes may now be 

 gained in some departments, original research, and the best 

 kind of popular exposition are as unremunerative as of old. 

 What we want for the domestication of science is, that each 

 town and district should regularly supply two courses of instruc- 

 tion, the one elementary, and the other intended to keep pace 

 with the advancing knowledge of the day. But whether the 

 means of study be public or private, a logical system should be 

 pursued. Thousands of intelligently disposed people find every 

 scientific subject difficult, because they have never mastered the 

 elements of a single one. If the principle of the lever, the 

 nature of fluid pressure and motion, the simplest incidents of 

 electric repulsion, attraction, or induction, the chemical pheno- 

 mena of combustion and combination are not understood, no 

 progress can be made. Such matters ought to be taught alike 

 to boys and girls in school, and easily secure their attention if 

 illustrated by appropriate experiments. We say these things 

 ought to be taught in the scholastic routine ; but as the great 

 majority of the pupils of exjoensive establishments learn no 

 more of them than if they had been placed under chloroform 

 as soon as the term commenced, and only revived for the holi- 

 days, the neglect of the pedagogues must be repaired after 

 their inefficient labours have been performed. 



In 1810 Sir Humphry Davy appealed to the "higher fe- 

 male classes " in words which are now applicable to women of 

 all ranks. He said, " Let them make it disgraceful for men 

 to be ignorant, and ignorance will perish; and that part of 

 their empire founded upon mental improvement will be 

 strengthened and exalted by time, will be untouched by age, 

 will be immortal in its youth/' Unhappily, we have still a 

 number of uncultivated young men who do not feel at ease in 

 the society of intelligent women ; and mothers of a certain 

 order look upon their girls as a kind of live stock, to be grown 

 so as to suit the taste of the market, whatever it may be. 

 Notwithstanding these circumstances, the demand for stupidity, 

 whether male or female, is less than it was ; and both sexes 





