1880.] Report on Scientific Societies. 553 
procure some amelioration ; and perhaps it may not be the 
exclusive result of personal considerations that, beside the 
ministry of instruction proper, there has been recently 
created in France another public department, designated 
as the Ministry for Letters, Science, and Art. Hitherto 
Science had been negleCted by the ministers who controlled 
it, but took principally care of Instruction. This would 
certainly happen also in England, if a so-called Minister of 
Education had to take care of both ; and I doubt whether 
Science would not be an absolute loser by getting the 
patronage of Government in any such form. 
If the prevention of evil be an objeCt of as great im- 
portance as the promotion of good, which you will probably 
allow, perhaps the warning I have ventured to convey in 
this letter may serve a purpose as useful as the positive 
suggestions my previous letters contained. Trusting to 
your kindness to communicate this letter also to the Royal 
Commission, 
I remain, my dear sir, 
Yours sincerely, 
C. K. Akin. 
Prof. G. C. Stokes, Sec. R.S., 
London. 
PS. — Perhaps I ought to have taken some notice in former 
letters of scientific establishments such as the Greenwich 
Observatory, the British Museum, the Kew Gardens, &c. 
I will now content myself with stating that they ought to 
be utilised in connexion with the proposed Royal College, 
in a manner self-evident, and which, therefore, I need not 
detail here. 
C. K. A. 
[Our readers are of course aware that the above letters were not published 
by the Royal Commission for whom they were originally written ; nor can it 
be said that their spirit has at all perceptibly influenced the “ Recommenda- 
tions ” which the Commissioners finally issued. It will be seen that Dr. Akin 
is far from holding that English Science would be greatly benefitted by a 
wholesale adoption of the features of the French Academy of Sciences or of 
the German Universities. This is the more probable as in such borrowings 
and imitations we generally contrive to copy unimportant details, leaving out 
of sight what is of primary importance. 
“ Wie er rauspert und ure er spukt 
Habt ihr ihm alle abgekuckt 
Doch das Genie, ich mein den Geist 
Man nicht auf der Wachtparade weist.” 
