March, 1910.] 



243 



Miscellaneous. 



lished in considerable numbers, from the 

 holders of which those who show that 

 they possess the gift of research can be 

 selected and promoted to higher posts in 

 which their gift can find full oppor- 

 tunity ; but we want more than this, 

 we want compensation for those whom 

 we have encouraged to make the trial 

 and who have failed to show that they 

 possess the gift, and an nutlet by which 

 they can emerge and find work in prac- 

 tical life. 



This has been and is a difficulty in all 

 schools of science, for many are called 

 but few are chosen, The situation is 

 this : it is desirable that a large body of 

 able young men should be encouraged 

 to take up scientific research, but as 

 experience has shown that only a small 

 proportion of them will possess the 

 qualities by which success in research 

 can be attained, and as it is undesirable 

 to encumber the progress and the liter- 

 ature of science by a host of workers 

 who have no real capacity for research, 

 it results that a time will arrive when a 

 great proportion of those whom we have 

 encouraged to give some of the best 

 years of their life to this unremuner- 

 ative work should be invited to find 

 other occupations. What is to be done? 

 We cannot throw them into the street. 

 Some compensation must be given. 

 There are two ways in which this can be 

 done. One is the system of prize fellow- 

 ships, which has for long been in vogue 

 at the old universities, and which it has 

 of late been the custom of those who 

 have not really studied the matter to 

 decry. Nevertheless, it is a good system, 

 for it provides an income by which those 

 who have given some of the best years 

 of their life to this trial of their capacity 

 can support themselves while they 

 qualify for taking part in a practical 

 profession. 



A prize fellowship system, or some- 

 thing like it, is a necessary accompani- 

 ment of a university which induces a 

 large number of young men to follow 

 for a time the intellectual life; it acts 

 both as an inducement and a compensa- 

 tion, and it would be a mistake and an 

 injustice, in my opinion, to abolish it ; 

 but there is another way in which the 

 difficulty can be met, and that is the 

 way which has been adopted by the wise 

 and far-seeing founders of the Imperial 

 College, namely, by the combination of 

 a school of science with a school of 

 technology. If you have incorporated 

 in your school of science a school of 

 applied science, and if you at the same 

 time take care that none but able men 

 are allowed to enter the research grade, 

 and if you establish, as you must do if 

 31 



you honestly work your school, a con- 

 nection with the great industrial interest 

 of the country, you have all that is 

 necessary for the disposal of those men 

 who, for whatever reason, find them- 

 selves unable to follow a life of pure 

 science. As is well known, the faculty 

 for pure, apparently useless, research 

 in science is often possessed by men 

 without any aptitude for practical appli- 

 cation of science or desire of practical 

 success and the wealth which practical 

 success brings ; while, on the contrary, 

 many minds of the highest order cannot 

 work at all without the stimulus of the 

 thought of the practical outcome of 

 their labour. 



In our College there i3 room both for 

 those with the highest gifts for pure 

 scientific research and for those with 

 the inventive faculty so important in 

 the arts, or with the knowledge and 

 ability for controlling and organising 

 great industrial enterprises ; and, what 

 is more, the combination of the two 

 types of mind in the same school cannot 

 but be of the greatest advantage to both, 

 not only on account of the atmosphere 

 which will be created, so favourable to 

 intellectual effort, but also because good 

 must result from the contact in oneschool 

 of minds whose ultimate aim is to probe 

 the mysteries of nature and to acquire 

 control over her forces. 



As Prof. Nichols has well said in point- 

 ing out the dependence of technology on 

 science : — " The History of Technology 

 shows that the essential condition under 

 which useful applications are likely to 

 originate is Scientific productiveness. 

 A country that has many investigators 

 will have many inventors also . . . Where 

 science is, there will its by-product tech- 

 nology be also. Communities having 

 the most thorough fundamental know- 

 ledge of pure science will show the 

 greatest output of really practical inven- 

 tions. Peoples who get their knowledge 

 at second hand must be content to follow. 

 Where sound scientific conceptions are 

 the common property of a nation, the 

 wasteful efforts of the half-informed will 

 be least prevalent." These are sound 

 conclusions, and experience has shown 

 that if the terms are interchanged the 

 same remarks may be made with equal 

 truth of the good influence which results 

 to a school of science from its association 

 with a school of technology. 



Before concluding, it may be well to 

 say a word as to the origin of the great 

 imperial institution in the interests of 

 which we are met here to-day. It may 

 justly be described as the natural and 

 necessary outcome of the scheme for 



