Anniversary Address by Prof'. C. S. Sherrington. 7 



Thomson remarked that now. in contrast against the early years of the 

 Cavendish Laboratory, the study of Physics, as regards the numbers to 

 whom it gives opening for a livelihood, constitutes in fact a profession of 

 its own. The same can be said of the Science of Chemistry, and of the 

 Biological sciences. Cultivation of science has been a feature of the country's 

 progress. This has in part been adjunct to the movement for the founda- 

 tion of new Universities. The number of the English Universities has 

 doubled in the last quarter of a century. The new Universities have shown 

 admirable energy in their departments of science. Following in the tradition 

 of the best of the older Universities they have, in instance after instance, 

 made their laboratories places of research. Only last year the Council of 

 the Society stated that to increase the resources and equipment of the 

 Universities is one of -the best ways of aiding research in pure Science. 

 The Report of the University Grants Committee in February of this year 

 indicated that the Universities were unable to meet their existing responsi- 

 bilities, and that their resources are inadequate to meet legitimate demands 

 upon them. It is, therefore, a matter of grave concern that the Government 

 Grant to the Universities is now to be cut down heavily. The maintenance 

 of the Universities at the level of efficiency which they have struggled so 

 resolutely, and with much service but poorly paid, to sustain, will thus 

 receive a very severe blow. 



Regression is the more disappointing because, during the war, there 

 came an awakening of the conscience of the nation in regard to Science. 

 The national need for wider and deeper interest in, and understanding of 

 Science came home to the community as it had not done hitherto. The import- 

 ance to the nation of, for instance, the national Physical Laboratory, whose 

 parent this Society may justly claim to be, began to receive more general 

 recognition than before. Its importance to the State became cogent to the 

 State. Six years ago saw the founding of the Advisory Council on Research 

 to the Privy Council, and a year later the establishing of the Department of 

 Scientific and Industrial Research. These were not created as part of the 

 machinery for the war, though during that common need they, like every other 

 national organization, made their contribution. They were brought into 

 existence to remedy deep-seated shortcomings which the war revealed in the 

 country's organization for scientific research. Their full effect was only 

 to be expected to come now, after the attainment of peace. It is, therefore 

 gravely disquieting that their State support estimates are being now reduced 

 by some 30 per cent, and that further reduction still is asked for. 



Again, if we turn to the domain of Biology, and take within that the field 

 of Medical Science, the Medical Research Committee, as it then was, had been 



