APPLICATION OF PURE SCIENCE 43 



with poor apparatus and tools. The need is for 

 better equipment and more assistance. 



That is the first thing, to provide for the 

 encouragement of research and the growth of pure 

 science. Then the second question arises : when 

 we have got it, how shall we encourage its applica- 

 tion ? As a nation we fail rather in our quickness 

 to do so. Why is not more use made of science in 

 England? It cannot fairly be said that we lack 

 the ability to study and discover. On the con- 

 trary, the records of science show that a very large 

 proportion of the physical discoveries that matter 

 are made in the British Empire, and of late years 

 this has been especially true. This is not said as 

 a boast but as a contribution to a clear view of 

 our position. We should be as wrong to overlook 

 our sources of encouragement as our reasons for 

 blame. Therefore it is right to take as an example 

 a new science like radio-activity, in which all 

 nations started from the same mark. With one 

 or two exceptions such as Mme Curie's original 

 separation of radium, nearly every experimental 

 fact of importance has been discovered within the 

 Empire. ' Doubtless there are several contributing 

 causes to our neglect of the opportunities of applying 

 scientific discoveries. But there are two which 

 we may well consider in this present connection. 

 The first is that we have been as a nation so well 

 off, our factories so full of work and orders, that we 

 have settled down comfortably into a lazy feeling 



