1258 Editors’ Table. [December, 
EDITORS’ TABLE, | 
EDITORS: A. S. PACKARD, JR., AND E. D. COPE. MS 
We are just at present having, on both sides of the water, 
a series of jeremiads preached by the high priests or prophets of | 
science. It is perhaps well, at times, to go out into the streets, 
to sit down in sackcloth and ashes, to bewail our situation, and 
to improve the opportunity by asking alms of the passers-by. _ 
Professor Lankester appears before the British Association, tells _ 
the British public some plain if bitter truths concerning the en- 
dowment of scientific research, and then coolly asks alms of the Me 
British government for England alone (Scotland and Ireland let = 
out) to the amount of the annual interest on two ! 
pounds. OPS 
We wish the English government could be brought for a period 
of one generation to make annual grants to that amount. Bes 
would literally be a costly experiment, but that enormously ge 
government has made, and is making in other directions, vastly 
costlier ones. Bee 
It is the fashion to depreciate the state 
but that republic votes annually large sums of money for 
education, higher as well as lower, which might well put oS 
blush Great Britain and the United States. Meanwhile ce 
tories for scientific research have been built at Roscoff, C 
neau, Villefranche, Banyuls and elsewhere, founded by | bic 
means, where England has at present nothing to compe 
those institutions. Who in England is doing such w! 
of science in Franc, — 
d’Herculais and Viallanes? What publications 
land to offset the Annales des Sciences Naturelles and mr: 
thiers’, magnificent journal? The only English journ 
sort is the excellent Quarterly Fournal of Microscopical 
and American students. We do not wis oe 
tract from English science, for in biology she can PO 
men like Darwin and Balfour, Bentham and Hooker, 
Huxley. a 
The German government is at present engaged z 
facture of soldiers and scientists ; her men of family gaT 
herited genius are largely to be found among the 
politically the German people are in leading SH! 
