MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT PORT ERIN. 31 



Mr. Haldane, to whom we in this University of 

 Liverpool owe so much, has recently reminded us that 

 " the weapons which science places in the hands of those 

 " who engage in great rivalries of commerce leave those 

 " who are without them, however brave, as badly off as 

 " were the dervishes of Omdurman against the Maxims of 

 " Lord Kitchener." 



Mr. Carnegie is wisely helping to place such weapons 

 in the hands of our commercial rivals across the Atlantic. 

 The German Government has enabled its scientific men to 

 forge the weapons and tools which have sufficed to wrest 

 more than one prosperous industry from our defenceless 

 hands. "We are comparatively in the stone-age, unpro- 

 vided with the necessary metal. Unless our leaders wake 

 up and realise the urgent need of endowing science and 

 organising research there is risk that we lose our place 

 among the nations. 



Until, however, this change in the official and public 

 attitude towards scientific education and research, so 

 clearly foreshadowed in several remarkable recent public 

 utterances, has been effected we must endeavour to carry 

 on the work in our old workshops and with such tools as 

 we have to hand, defective though these appliances may 

 be. And, as one humble example, I may remind you that 

 several distinct subjects which according to the essay in 

 the Encyclopaedia Britannica ought each to have impor- 

 tant and well-equipped national institutes devoted to its 

 cultivation, are in the meantime being carried on, 

 imperfectly no doubt, and at very little cost, in our Port 

 Erin Biological Station. 



That institution has to combine the functions of 

 research, university education, practical applications to 

 sea-fishery industries and popular education in the 

 Aquarium : last of all we have added this year the school 



