LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
Class
EDUCATION AND NATIONAL
PROGRESS
LIST OF WORKS BY SIR NORMAN
LOCKYER.
PRIMER OF ASTRONOMY.
ELEMENTARY LESSONS IN ASTRONOMY.
CONTRIBUTIONS TO SOLAR PHYSICS.
CHEMISTRY OF THE SUN.
THE METEOKITIC HYPOTHESIS.
THE SUN'S PLACE IN NATURE.
INORGANIC EVOLUTION.
RECENT AND COMING ECLIPSES.
STARGAZING, PAST AND PRESENT.
(In conjunction with G. M. Seabroke.)
THE DAWN OF ASTRONOMY.
STONEHENGE AND OTHER BRITISH STONE
MONUMENTS.
MOVEMENTS OF THE EARTH.
STUDIES IN SPECTRUM ANALYSIS.
THE SPECTROSCOPE AND ITS APPLICATIONS.
THE RULES OF GOLF.
(In -conjunction with W. Rutherford.)
EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
EDUCATION
AND
NATIONAL PROGRESS
ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES
1870-1905
MY
SIR NORMAN LOCKYER, K.C.B
AN INTRODUCTION BY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
R. B. HALDANE, K.C., M.P.
^jsi^irp,
OF THE *
UNIVERSITY
OF
LONDON :
MACMILLAN & Co., LIMITED
1906
INTRODUCTION.
BY
E RIGHT HONOURABLE R. B. HALDANE, M.P.
With the thesis which forms the text of this collection
of Assays and Addresses I am wholly in agreement.
What, we most lack in this country is the penetration
of the mass of our people by the spirit of the Higher
Education. Alike in our peace and in our war
organisations there is wanting the survey based on
science. Without this survey, and the grasp which it
yields of the relative proportion of things, a vast waste
of matter and energy alike is inevitable. As a nation
we possess great qualities. Individuality, initiative,
courage, are distinctive of our people. We are well
fitted to hold our own in the race for supremacy. But
we handicap ourselves by want of the higher training.
Such training requires self-submission to hard intel-
lectual discipline, and it is in this self-submission that
the majority of our young men are lacking.
None the less progress is being made, and being made
rapidly. The standard of knowledge is rising, and T
1(>7001
vi INTRODUCTION.
think that with it the moral standard is rising. Our
people are becoming more temperate, and they are
insisting on a higher standard of living. They will go
further, so the evidence seems to indicate, if they are
well led.
For the training of the necessary leaders the Higher
Education is essential, and the Universities are its only
reliable source. One of the satisfactory features of our
time is the large increase in the number of our Uni-
versities within the last ten years, and the generous en-
dowment of them from private sources. That the State
ought to do more than it does in the way of endowment
I agree with the writer of this book. But I am not sure
that I wish to see the burden transferred to the State in
the wholesale fashion that is sometimes suggested. In
expenditure out of taxes science is as essential as in the
arts and crafts to which these Essays and Addresses
refer. Probably nothing conduces more to national
efficiency than frugality in the use of national resources.
The private donor should be encouraged and not left
to expend his generosity in regions which do not
concern the State directly. In writing this I do not
mean that the Government ought not to spend public
money generously upon the Universities. I mean that
it should not be spent unless and until a case for the
necessity of such expenditure has been clearly made out.
INTRODUCTION.
VI 1
There has been too much waste in the past over some
n nit tors connected with education, and, as the result, too
much starvation over others, to make this warning
superfluous. No one who has had to do with the
business of Government can fail to have felt the pang
of regret at the discovery that precipitate expenditure
in the past, which events have shown to be misplaced,
lias deprived him of the money necessary to effect
necessary reforms. Festina lente is a good maxim for
a Chancellor of the Exchequer. He must remember
both the words of the maxim.
With this preliminary word of caution I associate
myself enthusiastically with the endeavour of my col-
league in the British Science Guild. There is a saying
of a recent writer which I will quote as expressing the
pith and marrow of what Sir Norman Lockyer and
others of us desire to preach as our gospel: " Vom
Wissen Zu Konnen ist immer ein Sprung ; der Sprung
ist vom Wissen und nicht vom Nicht- Wissen."
R. B. HALDANE.
PREFACE.
iave brought together in the present volume several
among my Essays and Addresses on educational subjects
which have appeared during the last thirty-five years.
In these I endeavoured to show how vital it is,
>m a national point of view, that the education of
'verybody, from prince to peasant, should be based
upon a study of things and causes and effects as well
as of words, and that no training of the mind is com-
plete which does not make it capable of following and
taking advantage of the workings of natural law which
dominate all human activities.
My point has in all cases been that the nation most
highly educated in this manner can, if the number of
combatants be equal, best hold its own in the struggle
i<>r existence both in peace and war, seeing that success
in either now depends not upon muscle but upon the
utilisation of the best and most numerous applications
of science. If the number of combatants is unequal,
then the smaller number can only hold its own if it be
much more highly educated than its opponent.
The present position of Britain from this point of
view shows that those of us who have endeavoured for
the last thirty-five years to point out the way in which
our people can survive in the struggle, have, to a large
nt, been crying in the wilderness. In spite <!' what
x PREFACE.
has been done during the last ten years, instead o a
relative advance there is still a relative decline in
relation to other countries. The United States and
Germany now have greater populations than ourselves
and at the same time the best and most complete
education, science and research, are there fully fostered,
while they are practically left uncared for by the
British Government.
If this goes on there can only be one result, which
cannot be evaded even by the close welding together,
be it sympathetic, fiscal or political, of all the British
people beyond the seas, unless the greater population
is at the same time furnished with greater brain-power
than that of the competing nations.
This will not be until the British and Colonial Govern-
ments change their attitude towards science and the
higher instruction. Largely increased endowments of
the higher education and research, and the utilisation of
scientific methods in all branches of the administration,
equal to those at the disposal of competing nations, can
alone save us.
Strenuous efforts should be made to apply these
remedies at once ; if delayed they may be too late.
I have to thank Mr. Haldane, who among other things
is the President of the Science Guild, for the honour he
has done the book by writing an introduction.
NORMAN LOCKYER.
November, 1906.
CONTENTS.
Introduction by the Right Honourable R. B. Haldane - v
Preface ix
1870. Education and War 1
1873. The Endowment of Research 5
1877. Technical Education 11
1883. The Education of our Industrial Classes - 16
The Education Question in 1883 43
1885. Lord Playfair and others on our Educational Needs 50
1887. Science and Education during Victoria's Reign - 57
1895. Education and Industry 62
1896. Scientific Education in Germany and England - 65
1898. A Short History of Scientific Instruction - 75
1899. Scientific Education and the Progress of Nations - 105
1901. Education in the New Century - 118
1902. The Organisation of Knowledge - -130
1903. The Education of Naval Ofiicers - 150
The Influence of Brain-power on History - - 172
1904. The National Need of the State Endowment of
Universities - - 216
1905. Opening Address at the Inauguration of the British
Science Guild - 222
The New Renaissance - - 226
Appendices
The German Universities - - - 243
The Universities of the United States 248
The Requirements of the University of Birmingham 258
The Requirements of the Welsh Universities and
Colleges - - 262
- 265
,-rV
UNIVERSITY
OF
1-nrCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
EDUCATION AND WAR.
(1870.)
The dogs of war are again let loose, and in the two
most highly civilised countries of Europe, where, a little
time ago, science, education and commerce were in full
sway, all the arts of peace are already neglected, and in
prospect have gone back a quarter of a century. We
can hardly yet realise that at the present moment railways
are being torn up, lighthouses dismantled, lightships
towed into harbour, and monuments of engineering skill,
such as the bridge over the Rhine at Kiel, undermined,
so that they may be destroyed at a moment's notice.
But these, after all, are calamities of the second order ;
education is stopped ; science schools are broken up ;
both professors and pupils are forsaking the laboratory
and the class-room, and the whole machinery of progress
has come to a standstill.
Science has little to do with politics : the function of
science is to unite the whole human family, whereas the
function of politics seems to be, both in the case of men
and nations, to create parties and to emphasise them
as much as possible, the object in each case being place
for the partisans whether that place be an income of
A
2 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
a few thousands a year in one case or increased terri-
tory in the other.
As science advances such policies will be overridden
when science and education have taken their proper posi-
tion when the sword has given place to brain when
more of the best men of each nation take part in each
nation's counsels, the dreadful thirst after blood will
give way to something better ; monarchs will see the
folly of being surrounded merely with empty helmets,
or at all events if they do not, others will ; and much
will have been done when the pampering of armed men
shall cease.
There is one point, however, in connection with the
coming war which cannot be pointed out too strongly
one duty which England owes to herself, and which, if
it be well done, may make her after all a gainer from
the dreadful strife. It has been already stated, and
the statement is not an exaggeration, that the war will
throw the countries engaged in it back a quarter of a
century. Now, England at the present moment, be
the cause what it may, is in many things a quarter of a
century behind France and Prussia, notably in educa-
tion of all kinds and especially in scientific education.
The following extract from the Eeport of Mr. Samuel-
son's Committee on Scientific Education a report
which, we believe, has not even yet been taken into con-
sideration by our Legislature is so much to the point
that we give it here :
" Nearly every witness speaks of the extraordinarily rapid progress
of Continental nations in manufactures, and attributes that rapidity,
not to the model workshops which are met with in some foreign
countries, and are but an indifferent substitute for our own great
factories, and for those which are rising up in every part of the
AND WAR.
Continent ; but, besides other causes, to the scientific training of the
proprietors and managers in France, Switzerland, Belgium and Ger-
many, and to the elementary instruction which is universal amongst
the working population of Germany and Switzerland. There can be
no doubt, from the evidence of Mr. Mundella, of Professor Fleeminir
Jenkin, of Mr. Kitson and others, and from the numerous reports
of competent observers, that the facilities for acquiring a knowledge
of theoretical and applied science are incomparably greater on the
Continent than in this country, and that such knowledge is based
on an advanced state of secondary education.
" All the witnesses concur in desiring similar advantages of education
for this country, and are satisfied that nothing more is required, and
that nothing less will suffice, in order that we may retain the position
which we now hold in the van of all industrial nations. All are of
opinion that it is of incalculable importance economically that our
manufacturers and managers should be thoroughly instructed in
the principles of their arts.
" They are convinced that a knowledge of the principles of science
on the part of those who occupy the higher industrial ranks, and the
possession of elementary instruction by those who hold subordinate
positions, would tend to promote industrial progress by stimulating
improvement, preventing costly and unphilosophical attempts at
impossible inventions, diminishing waste and obviating in a great
measure ignorant opposition to salutary changes.
v: Whilst all the witnesses concurred in believing that the economical
necessity for general and scientific education is not yet fully realised
by the country, some of them consider it essential that the Govern-
ment should interfere much more actively than it has done hitherto,
to promote the establishment of scientific schools and colleges in our
it industrial centres."
It is impossible that we can say anything stronger than
this in favour of taking the fullest advantage of the
opportunity of regaining our intellectual and therefore
our commercial prestige.
If England is to prepare for war, the abnormal con-
dition, so let it be ; but surely, a fortiori she should
prepare for peace, the normal one, as well. This has never
struck her ministers, and the reason is not far to seek.
But this is not nil : the same disregard for science,
A _'
4 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
arising from the ignorance of science among our rulers,
has probably placed us in another position of disadvan-
tage. While France and Prussia have been organising
elaborate systems of scientific training for their armies,
a recent Commission has destroyed what little chance
there was of our officers being scientifically educated
at all. As there is little doubt that a scientific training
for the young officer means large capabilities for combina-
tion and administration when that officer comes to com-
mand, we must not be surprised if the organisation of our
army, if it is to do its work with the minimum of science,
will, at some future time, again break down as effec-
tually as it did in the Crimea, or that our troops will
find themselves over-matched should the time ever come
when they will be matched with a foe who knows how to
profit to the utmost from scientific aids.
Wh'le, therefore, the Continent is being deluged with
blood, let us prepare for peace as well as for war ; let us
prepare ourselves for victories in the arts, conquests
over nature ; let us, by means of a greater educational
effort, more science schools, a truer idea of the mode in
which a nation can really progress, fit ourselves to take
our place among the nations when peace returns. Surely
if there be statesmen among us, such a clear line of policy
will not be overlooked.
Education and Science at the present moment are
England's greatest needs.
ENDOWMENT OF RESEARCH.
(1873.)
There are not wanting signs that ere long the whole
question of the present condition of research in this
country, and of its amelioration, will undergo a com-
plete discussion. Those who are best acquainted with
this condition, and the position occupied by England
at the present moment in the science of the world, will
be the first to acknowledge the importance of general
attention being directed to the subject.
When the matter comes to be considered by minds
live from the trammels alike of tradition and of pre-
judice, it will doubtless be found strange that such a
fundamental question should have waited so long before
it should have asserted itself ; on the other hand, it is
perfectly clear that many who are even now consider-
ing it have utterly failed to grasp it as it will have to be
grasped.
This lack of clearness in the appreciation of the vast
bearings of the question is quite pardonable, and is,
doubtless, to a large extent, the natural consequence
of the manner in which physical science has been added
t' the older knowledge. It would seem, however,
that a mere statement of a few fundamental positions
should clear the view. These positions, most fortunately,
are rapidly asserting themseh
6 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
First, we have the generally acknowledged fact that a
nation's progress depends upon its science. Science,
in fact, is the engine which must be as ever active in
peace as the cannpn's mouth is in war, and a nation may
just as safely neglect one as the other.
This brings us to the second position. Does England
as a nation pay as much heed to the one as the other ?
or as much as other nations ? To ask this question is
to answer it. England as a nation does next to nothing
for this peace armament, and on all hands it is acknow-
ledged that the nation's progress from this point of
view is in great danger, because the decline of research
in England, not only relatively, but absolutely, is so
decided, that it is already a matter of history.
To what then is this decline to be attributed ? The
reply to this question brings us to the third point. There
is absolutely no career for the student of science, as such,
in this country. True scientific research is absolutely
unencouraged and unpaid. The original investigator
is of course the man here intended, not the man who
turns science into a means of livelihood, however hon-
ourable, either as a teacher or a manufacturer.
There can be no doubt that to this state of things our
present condition is to be ascribed, and this point is,
according to us, the key of the whole position. A glance
at the condition of things in France and Germany will
strengthen our view. Why was Germany till lately the
acknowledged leader in all matters connected with the
advancement of knowledge ? Because there were no
such brilliant and highly paid careers open there as here
to those who choose politics, the bench, the bar or com-
merce, in preference to science. And what is happening
ENDOWMENT OF RESEARCH:
tere at present ? A decline visible not alone to
the far-sighted, because Germany is getting rich just
as England has long been rich. Why is France now
endowing research on a large scale, and even propos-
ing that the most successful students in her magnificent
Polytechnic School should be allowed to advance Science
as State servants ? Because in France there is a
Government instructed enough to acknowledge that a
decline of investigation may bring evil to the State, and
that it is the duty of the State to guard against this
condition of things at all cost, this condition till lately,
there as here, being that outside of the State service
and outside of the professoriate, no means of existence
are provided for a student of science ; hence men of
the most excellent promise are yearly lost to research,
which undoubtedly also is the case with us.
What course does it then behove us to pursue in this
country, in order that science may take up its true posi-
tion in our midst ?
Here again opinion is rapidly forming itself. It is
obvious to all who have thought about the matter, that
it is absolutely indispensable that an employment, neces-
sary for the public good, which is neglected to the State's
detriment because in itself it does not bring in a live-
lihood, should be artificially supported at the public
expense. It would be quite justifiable, both from an
economical and also a political point of view, to provide
for the needs of knowledge out of the taxation of the
country ; because the taxpayer gets back his quid pro
quo for the taxes he pays in the form of the amelioration
of the conditions of living, as he gets it back in the
of security and good government.
8 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
It will probably be a considerable time before this
truth is brought home to the public mind so completely
as to render possible any large grant of national income
for this purpose ; but there are not wanting indications
that statesmen of all parties are awakening to its reality,
which in point of fact has long been conceded in principle.
Still, such a source of support for science to any very
large extent must appear, even to the most sanguine, a
thing of the future.
The area of knowledge will probably, in the future,
increase beyond the means of any artificial support less
than the national one ; but perhaps it cannot be said that
this state of things exists at present.
What, then, are we to do in the meantime ? Have we
no means which are at hand and immediately available,
which may suffice to support the present claims of know-
ledge, without drawing too extensively upon the long-
suffering or the intelligence of the taxpayer ?
We have the means, if we will only employ them nay
more, some of them are now, for the most part, lying idle
of not only supplying all the needs of the physical and
other sciences, but of supplying them magnificently.
To mention no other sources of supply, there is the Patent
Fund, and the endowments of the colleges of the old
Universities.
As to the Patent Fund, it is not too much to say
that a large part has been derived from the application
of the abstract truths of physical science to the
requirements of ordinary life, and that therefore the
needs of physical science would be properly provided
for out of it.
As to the College Endowments, whichever way we look
ENDOWMENT OF RESEARCH. 9
at them, either as private bequests, as they are at length
ceasing to be regarded, or as public funds, the conclusion
is the same : their proper destination is the support of
learning and science.
If we look upon them as private bequests, and interpret
the wills of founders and benefactors on the usual $i-pres
principle, we should be right in devoting to investigation
of facts at first hand the funds which were left by the
far-seeing men of the time of the revival of letters for
the support of book-learning, which at that time occupied
the place of modern science. That they so regarded
the aim of these bequests is shown, amongst other
things, very remarkably by the universal annexation
to the enjoyment of them of the condition of residence
within the Universities. When the whole, or the major
part, of the materials of investigation was enshrined
in libraries, to insist that a man should remain where
libraries were, was to insist that he should remain in his
workshop.
If, on the other hand, we are to regard these endow-
ments as public funds, as is now generally agreed, is it
right that such public funds should be consumed either
in educating those who are practically as well able to
pay for their own education as those who now receive a
similar one at, say, the London University, an institution
which is not aided by the State ; or in supplying a life-
maintenance to a considerable body of able young men,
in return for passing a good examination at the outset
of life ?
It is well known that the ordinary Fellow of a college
does not dream for a moment that he has any duties
towards knowledge or science. He regards the public
10
EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
money which he enjoys as a portion in a freehold estate,
to enable him to tide over the uncertain years which
come at the commencement of the ordinary professional
career, the brilliant rewards of which we have shown
to be the cause of the decline of science in this country,
because they enable the practical life to outbid in attrac-
tiveness the laborious, but most necessary, pursuit of
truth.
TECHNICAL EDUCATION.
(1877.)
Professor Huxley has seized the occasion offered him by
his promise to aid the Working Men's Club and Institute
Union by contributing to their present series of fort-
nightly lectures, to state his opinion on a question which
has lately been exercising the minds of some of the most
influential members of various city companies.
For some time past a joint committee, representing
the most important among these bodies, has been en-
eavouring to obtain information as to the best means
of applying certain of their surplus funds to the assistance
of what is called technical education, and there is little
doubt that a proposal for a huge technical university,
made some time ago, and the discussion which took
place in connection with that proposal, has had some-
what to do in leading to the present condition of affairs.
Professor Huxley and some four or five other gentlemen
have been appealed to by this joint committee to send
in reports on what they consider the best way to set
about the work, and it is from this point of view that
Professor Huxley's lecture is so important. It was not
merely fresh and brilliant and full of good things, as
all his lectures are, but is doubtless an embodiment of
his report to the joint committee.
12 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
\\ e are rejoiced, therefore, to see that Professor Huxley
is at one with the view that, after all, the mind is the
most important instrument which the handicraftsman,
whether he be a tinker or a physicist, will ever be called
upon to use, and that a technical education which teaches
him to use a lathe, a tool or a loom, before he has
learned how to use his mind, is no education at all.
Professor Huxley not only denned technical education
as the best training tto qualify the pupil for learning
technicalities for himself, but he stated what he con-
sidered such an education might be, and how the city
funds can be best spent in helping it on.
Besides being able to read, write and cipher, the
student should have had such training as should have
awakened his understanding and given him a real interest
in his pursuit. The next requirement referred to was
some acquaintance with the elements of physical science
a knowledge (rudimentary, it might be, but good and
sound, so far as it went), of the properties and character
of natural objects. The professor is also of opinion
that it is eminently desirable that he should be able,
more or less, to draw. The faculty of drawing, in the
highest artistic sense, was, it was conceded, like the
gift of poetry, inborn and not acquired ; but, as every-
body almost could write in some fashion or other, so,
for the present purpose, as writing was but a kind of
drawing, everybody could more or less be supposed to
draw. A further desideratum was some ability to read
one or two languages besides the student's own, thai
he might know what neighbouring nations, and those
with which we were most mixed up, were doing, and
have access to valuable sources of information which
TECHNICAL
-ouid otherwise be sealed to him. But above all an
this t he speaker thought was t he most essential condition
the pupil should have kept in all its bloom the freshness
and vouthfulncss of his mind, all the vigour and elasticity
proper to that age. Professor Huxley then went on to
explain that this freshness and vigour should not have
been washed out of the student by the incessant labour
and intellectual debauchery often involved in grinding
for examinations.
\\V gather from this part of the address we shall refer
to the ot hers by and by that so far as Professor Huxley's
advice goes we are not likely to see any great expenditure
of the money of the ancient city corporations either in
the erection of a huge " practical " university or in the
creation of still another " Kxa mining Board." How
then docs he propose to spend it ?
Here we come to a substantial proposal which Professor
Huxley may consider to be the most important part of
his address. \Vhat is wanted, he considers, is some
machinery for utilising in the public interest special talent
and genius brought to light in our schools. "If any
(Jovernment could find a Watt, a Davy or a Faraday
in the market, the bargain would be dirt cheap at 100,000/."
Deferring to his saying when he was a member of the
London School Hoard that lie should like to see a ladder
by which a child could climb from the gutter to the highest
'\\n\\ in the State, he dwelt upon the importance
of som- in by which any boy of special aptitude
should be encouraged to prolong his studies, to join art
and science classes, and be apprenticed, with a premium
if ii ry. In tin oi those who showed g]
fitness for intellectual pursuits they might be trained
14 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
as pupil teachers, brought to London, and placed in
some collegiate institution or training school. In this
way the money of the guilds would be spent in aiding
existing teaching systems, in which, on the whole, an
enormous progress was acknowledged.
It is true the architects of London would not have the
opportunity of immortalising themselves by erecting an
imposing edifice, but, on the other hand, the influence
of the Guilds might be felt whenever there was a handi-
craft to foster, or a potential Watt to be sought out.
We do not imagine that it is Professor Huxley's idea
that there shall be no local representation of the city's
new activity and influence ; the reference to the training
of teachers, we fancy, and other remarks here and there,
seem to point to some such institution as the Ecole Nor-
male of Paris, where the best and most practical scientific
teaching could be carried on. Everyone knows how
much room there is for such an institution as this, but
on this little money need be spent, so far as bricks and
mortar are concerned, as little money is needed to equip
such laboratories as are really meant for work.
There is an advantage in such lectures as these by no
means limited to the expression of opinion on the part
of the speaker. The slow and sure way in which science
is taking a hold upon our national progress is well evi-
denced by the fact that the daily press can now no longer
ignore such outcomes as these, and hence it is that they
do good beyond the mere boundary of the question under
discussion. They show the importance of, and foster
interest in, the general question of intellectual and scien-
tific progress.
The Times agrees in the main with the kind of
TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 15
education to be given, and holds that " What is needed is
to give a man the intelligence, the knowledge of general
principles, combined with the habits of correct obser-
vation and quick perception, which will enable him after-
wards to master the technicalities of his art, instead
of becoming a slave to them. No objection can be taken
to the advice that, for this purpose, a lad, after learning
to read, write and cipher, should acquire some facility
in drawing and should be familiarised with the elements
of physical science. The importance of the latter study
for this particular purpose is, indeed, unquestionable,
and even paramount, for a handicraftsman is dealing
exclusively with physical objects in his work, and his
skill in applying the processes of his craft will vary in
great measure with his knowledge of the scientific prin-
ciples on which they depend."
But we fancy that The Times writer does not look upon
this scientific part of education quite as the lecturer
does, for he proceeds to add : " There can be little doubt,
for instance, that many of the perils of mining might
be averted if the miners were alive to the scientific reasons
of the precautions they are urged to adopt. Many an
improvement, probably, which now escapes the eye of
a man who adheres slavishly to the rules of his craft would
occur to him if he were applying them with conscious
intelligence."
The Times, however, considers that the school-time
is too short for the languages and, curiously enough,
drives its point home by saying a harder thing about the
Greek and Latin of our public schools than Professor
Huxloy has ever done ; while, on the other hand, the
Dnily News points out that Professor Huxley this time
10 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
may have raised a hornet's nest about his ears by the
unduly reasonable tone of his demands.
The Daily News then adds : " A man of science who
does not demand that from the earliest age an hour a
day shall be devoted to each of the ologies may be re-
garded as a traitor to his cause." For our part we know
of no man of science who has ever made such a demand ;
and a careful examination of what men of science have
said on this point for 'the last ten years will show that
these extreme views to which refe r ' ^e is here made are
not those of men of science at all.
It will be well also if the strong L -guage used in con-
nection with the multiple examinations of the present
day brings that question well before the bar of public
opinion. The Times is " sorry to see another flout thus
inflicted, in passing, on that system of examinations
which, like most good institutions, may do harm to the
few, but is indispensable as a motive for work to the
great majority." Professor Huxley has expressed the
views of most of the leading teachers in this country with
regard to the effect of these examinations upon the
students, and he might have referred to their reflex
action on the examiner. Go into a company of scientific
men, and observe the most dogmatic, the most unfruit-
ful and the least modest among them, you will find
that this man is, as we may say, an examiner by pro-
fession. Speak to him of research or other kindred
topics, he will smile at you his time is far too precious
to be wasted in discussing such trivialities ; like his
examinees, he finds they do not pay. The example set by
Germany in this respect, both as regards students and
professors, cannot be too often referred to, and there
TECHNICAL EDUCATION.
17
little doubt that the love of science for its own sake which
has made Germany what she now is intellectually, has
sprung to a large extent from the fact that each young
student sees those around him spurred from within and
not from without. Noblesse oblige.
In point of fact, as far as our future scientific progress
is concerned the examination question is as important
as that connected with the kind of education to be sub-
sidised by the city guilds, and it is important, seeing
that our legislators will, in the coming time, have to
give their opinion on these subjects as well as on beer,
vivisection and contagious diseases, that in Professor
Huxley's language,
'' Hy the process called distillatio per ascensum distillation upwards
there should in time be no Member of Parliament who does not
know as much of science as a scholar in one of our elementary schools.''
THE EDUCATION OF OUE INDUSTRIAL
CLASSES.*
(1883.)
It is, I believe, according to precedent, now that an-
other year's work of the Science Classes here has been
crowned by the award of prizes, that I should address you
on some topic allied to the matters which have brought
us together to-night.
I need not search long for a subject, for the scientific
education of those engaged in our national industries
upon the success or failure of which, in the struggle for
existence, the welfare of our country so largely depends
is now one of the questions of the day.
I propose, therefore, to lay before you some facts
and figures bearing upon the education of our industrial
classes, and I shall attempt to make what I have to say
on that special point clearer, by touching upon some
preliminary matters, which will show how it is that such
a question as this has not been settled long ago ; and
* An Address delivered at Coventry. The late Sir Bernard Samuelson, Bart.,
F.R.S., then one of the leaders in the educational movement, wrote to me as
follows with regard to it : " I have read your Coventry address with great
pleasure. It has for the first time condensed into few words, easily understood
by all, the whole problem of the Education of the Industrial Classes in this
country. It avoids the exaggeration so common when technical instruction and
its influence on industry is spoken of, and it does justice to the efforts of the
Government."
THE EDUCATION* iF ARTTXASS. 19
further, that we can, if we wish, settle it now in the
full light of the experience gained elsewhere, instead of
wasting, let us say, a quarter of a century in costly
experiments which may perhaps leave us in confusion
worse confounded.
To begin, then, why is this question being discussed
now ?
There is a great fact embodied in the most concrete
fashion in the way in which our Government is now com-
pelled to deal with our national education. Side by side
with the Education Department by which our Minister
controls in the main that book learning which has been
given time out of mind, there has sprung up during the
last thirty years another department the Science and
Ait Department by which he controls a new kind of
national learning altogether. We have added to the old
study of books a new study of things.
This new learning was, we may say, only introduced
in 1852, in which year the Queen in her speech on opening
Parliament said, ' The advancement of the fine arts
and of practical science will be readily recognised by you
as worthy the attention of a great and enlightened nation."
We have since found out that they are indeed worthy
the attention of a great nation, and more than this, that
no nation can be called enlightened whose citizens are not
skilled in both ; in fact, that they are to peace what cannon
.ind swords are to war. But for a nation to foster them
is one thing, to include them in a national scheme of
education is another.
Ou^lit they to be so included? Let us see. What
do we mean by education ?
Roughly speaking, we may say that there are two
B2
20 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
distinct schools of thought on this subject, although
the existence of these two schools is not so generally re-
cognised as it should be. According to one view, the
human mind is an elastic bag into which facts are to be
crammed for future use. A variation of the view is that
the mind is inelastic, and then the stuffing process becomes
more serious, and instead of depending upon a natural
expansion, a process like that in use by the manufacturers
of soda-water is employed. It is not to be wondered at
that the youthful mind likes neither of these methods ;
what ought to be a true delight becomes a real agony,
and hence it is, as a Warwickshire man wrote many
years ago
" Love goes toward love
As schoolboys from their books ;
But love from love
Toward school with heavy looks."
The mind on this view resembles a store where, as
our American cousins say, everything, from a frying-pan
to a frigate, which shall be useful to the owner in after-
life is to be found. Hence such terms as Grammar
School, Trade School, Science School, Commercial Aca-
demy, and hence, I am sorry to say, systems of examination
which too often only serve to show what a boy can
remember, and care little about either what a boy can
do, or whether he can think.
So much for one view. Now for the other.
It is more difficult to image it, but, in the absence of a
better illustration, the mind may be likened to the body
a thing to be trained so that its grace, its freedom, its
strength, its grasp, indeed all its powers in all directions
and in all ways may be brought out by proper training.
THE EDUCATION OF ARTIZANS. 21
If the training is one-sided its power cannot be many-
sided, but it is most useful when many-sided. Therefore,
as each muscle of the body has to be properly trained
make a perfect man, so must the educational system
>rought into play be such as to train to its uttermost
and bring out each quality of the mind. Each faculty
of it when called into play becomes as a two-edged sword
in the arms of a strong man. In this, or some such way,
then, may we picture to ourselves the difference between
instruction in its real sense and education in its real
sense.
Now, which of these systems is the better one ?
We shall see at once that the first may give us a mind
stored with facts covering a large or a small area ; it may
be bookkeeping, or it may be Latin, or anything else. But
will the mind be able to use this store in all cases ? We
grant knowledge, but may not wisdom linger ? Those
of us who have got to Voltaire's second stage, and who
have studied men, know that this too often happens, and
that much knowledge does not prevent the owner from
being absolutely unfitted to grapple with the problems
which each rising sun brings to him for solution. The
other system, on the other hand, if the training is not
thoroughly all -round, may give us a man who finds that
the questions presented to him on his entrance to active
life are precisely those which require the application of
that quality of mind, whichever it may be, which was least
trained at school. He may find himself face to face
with problems of the existence of which he never dreamed,
and so far removed from his experience that his mind,
however powerful in some directions, fails to grapple
with them.
22 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
We seem, then, on the horns of a dilemma. Instruction
may provide us with a store of facts, which the mind
does not know how to use. Education may provide
us with a mind which has been trained in a world utterly
different from the real one.
How can we escape from this dilemma ? We must use
the materials of that instruction which is most useful to us
in our progress through life as a basis for the complete
education of the mind. Which instruction is the most
useful to us ? The poet tells us that " the proper study of
mankind is man ; ' : but when we come to prose and
read the views of those who best know the needs of modern
society, and especially industrial society, we read some-
thing like this, which I quote from the report on elementary
and middle class instruction, published by the Royal
Commission of the Netherlands : " The idea of Industrial
Society not limited to agriculture, manufactures, and
trade or commerce, but understood in its widest significa-
tion, points plainly to the acquiring of the knowledge
of the present world, and to its application to economical
and technical pursuits."
Now, here is a subject on which a volume might be
written, but I shall only point out to you the obviousness
of the importance of the study, not merely of ourselves, or
of the world around us, but of ourselves and of the world
around us.
This lands us in the necessity of training our minds in
literature or humanities, and science and art. The study
of the humanities enables us to know the best thoughts,
and the most stable conclusions on vital questions, arrived
at by our forerunners and those who are fighting the
same battles in other lands. The study of science enables
THE EDUCATION OF ARTIZANS. 23
us, on the other hand, to get a true idea of the beautiful
universe around us, of our real work in the world and
of the best manner in which we can do that work in
closest harmony with the laws of Nature. Did we study
the external world alone we should not profit by the
experience of those that preceded us. Did we study
humanities alone we should be shorn of half our natural
strength in face of many of the problems placed before
us by the conditions of modern life ; and, more than
this, all the glories of the beautiful world on which our
lot is cast, and the majesty of the universe of which that
world forms part would hardly exist for us, or give rise
only to dumb wonder.
Here let me tell you a little story. Three years ago when
ravelling in America, one morning, at a little station
we were approaching the Rocky Mountains I was
astonished to see a very old and venerable French cure
in his usual garb enter the car, and as he was evidently
in some distress of mind, and as evidently had little
command of English, I asked him in his native language
if I could be of any service to him. There was a difficulty
ibout a box which I soon settled, and then we sat down
id entered into conversation. He soon found out that
was very astonished to see him there and told me so. I
knowledged it. "It is very simple," he said. "I am
old, and six months ago I was like to die, and I
doing my best to prepare myself for the long journey.
[n my fancies I imagined myself already in the presence
if le bon Dieu, and I fancied this question addressed
me, ' M. le cure, how did you like the beautiful world
>u have left ? ' I rose in my bed as this thought came
tto my head f<>r I -1 who figure to yourself had dared
24 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
to preach of a better world for fifty years, was, oh ! so
ignorant of this. And I registered a vow that if le bon
Dieu allowed me to rise from that bed of sickness I would
spend the rest of my life in admiring his works et me
void ! I am on my journey round the world ; I am
going now to stop at the Yosemite Valley a few days
en route for San Francisco and Japan ; and the box,
Monsieur, which your kindness has rescued for me, con-
tains a little scientific library, now my constant com-
panion in my delicious wanderings."
Our general scheme of education, therefore, unless
it is to be one-sided, must combine science with the
humanities.
But, so far, I have said nothing about art. Now, from
the educational point of view, science and art are very
closely connected, inasmuch as in the early stages of both
studies the student's powers of observation are brought out
and trained in the most perfect way, while in the later
stages, to succeed in either, he must have learned that
very important thing how to use his hands ; and at
whatever age you put it that a boy or a girl should use
the hand neatly and skilfully, before that age you should
take care that some elementary grounding, at all events,
in the only training which can do this, shall have been
given. No amount of Greek, or of useful or useless
geography, or even of rule of three, can prevent the fingers
being all thumbs, unless some such training has been
given, and for the very earliest training drawing is un-
doubtedly the best. But this is by no means the only
advantage of the combination. Any one who has to go
over thousands of examination papers finds in nineteen
cases out of twenty that an orderly drawing or diagram is
.
't'
THE EDUCATION OF ARTIZAN T S. 25
generally associated with an orderly mind. In fact, a
diagram may be regarded as an index of the amount and
accuracy of the knowledge possessed by the student. The
text of the student who fails in the diagram is generally a
more awkward jumble than the diagram itself. Hence
the facts show that this training of the hand is accompanied
by much good mental result. This is now so generally
recognised, that in a not distant period no professor of
biology, for instance, will attempt to demonstrate practi-
cally microscopic structure to students who have had no
preliminary training in drawing. This is one example out
of many which might be given, for as natural science is the
study of nature, and as we can only study her by pheno-
mena, the eye and the hand and the mind must work
together to achieve success ; and he who attempts to
describe the geology of a district, the minute structure
of a frog's foot, an eclipse of the sun, or the rings of Saturn,
in words and words only, has only done half his work ;
to complete it he must appeal to art for aid.
Now, many of you may be prepared to concede, without
any further insistence on my part, that an elementary
acquaintance with art is of great, nay, of even essential
importance, not only for its own sake, but because of its
aid in natural studies. We must then add art to science
and literature in order to form a complete curriculum.
Here pardon me one moment's digression from the direct
line of my argument. Many will agree that science is
aided by art who deny that art is aided by science to the
- 1 me extent. Indeed, some are prepared to urge that one
who proposes to devote himself to art can derive no possible
benefit from the study of science. Let us inquire into this
a little. If \vr wish to excel in the art <>i ligure-painting,
26 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGEESS.
we must know anatomy, a most important branch of
science ; and as a matter of fact, many artists study
anatomy as minutely as many surgeons do ; and in the
old days, when the artist and the poet were more saturated
with the knowledge of the time than they are now, we
find the great Leonardo at once professor of anatomy and
founder of a school of painting as yet unsurpassed. If we
pass from the figure to ornamental design, or if we wish to
show objects in perspective, is not every line, whether
straight or curved, dominated by an appeal to geometry ?
Again, suppose we take landscape. Here we meet with
phenomena of colour as much regulated by law as are the
phenomena of form, and an anatomy of colour is fast being
formulated, which to the artist of the future will be as
precious as the anatomy of form has been in the past, and
will ever continue to be. Let us take, for instance, an
artist who wishes to paint a sunset, one of the most
magnificent sights which it is given to man to witness.
The sky is covered with clouds here and there, and not
only do the colours of the clouds vary, almost from moment
to moment, but in all cases they present the strongest
contrast to the colour of the sky itself. The artist is
bewildered, and finds each effect that he would seize to be
so transient that at last he gives up in despair the attempt
to note down the various tints. But the possession of a
knowledge of the part played by the lower strata of our
atmosphere in absorbing now one and now another of the
components of the light of the setting sun, would change
this despair into a joy almost beyond expression. For
the bewildering changes of colour are then discovered to
be bound together by a law as beautiful as the effects
themselves.
THE EDUCATION OF ARTIZAN- L>7
There is another point of view. One is frequently
pained in seeing in an otherwise noble work of art,
evidences that the artist was crassly ignorant of the
phenomena he attempted to represent, and in his attempts
to transcend nature had only succeeded in caricaturing
her, painting, for example, a rainbow in perspective, or a
moon with its dark side turned towards the setting sun.
Yet these are almost trifles, and, in fact, here we have the
excuse of the ignorant artist now, I am thankful to say,
the representative of a class that is fast disappearing
for his defence is, that he has nothing to do with such
small matters, and that accuracy of this kind may quite
properly be sacrificed to secure the balance of his picture.
Now, to return to the main drift of my address, we
have seen that in any complete system of education
neither science nor art must be neglected by the side of the
old humanities the old literary studies ; and it is indeed
fortunate for us that we live in an age in which the laws
and the phenomena of the external world have been
studied and formulated with such diligence and success
that it is as easy to teach science in the best possible
way, as it is to teach classics in the best possible way.
It is half a century since the Germans found out the
importance of the new studies from a national point of
view. We are now finding it out for ourselves, and
finding it out not a moment too soon ; and I need hardly
tdl vou that the transformation which is going on is
acknowledged to be one of the highest national im-
portance. It is no longer an abstract question of a
method of education ; it is a question of the life or death of
many of our national industries, for, in a struggle for
stence, how can a man who wins his bread by the
28 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
application of national laws to some branch, of industry,
if he be ignorant of those laws, compete with the man
who is acquainted with them ? If for man we read
nation, you see our present position.
How far then have we got with our transformation,
limiting our inquiry to primary and secondary instruction ?
First, as to elementary education. The idea of the
education the compulsory education, if necessary, of all
the citizens in a state dates from the time of Luther. It
is a horrible thing that we should have had to wait three
and a half centuries since his time for such a measure,
which is an act of simple justice to each child that is
brought into the world. In 1524 Luther addressed a
letter to the Councils of all the towns in Germany begging
them to vote money, not merely for roads, dykes, guns
and the like, but for schoolmasters, so that the poor
children might be taught ; on the ground that if it be the
duty of a State to compel its able-bodied citizens to take
up arms to defend the fatherland, it is a fortiori its duty
to compel them to send their children to school, and to
provide schools for those who, without such aid, would
remain uninstructed.
Thanks to our present system, now about ten years old,
out of an estimated population of 8,000,000 children
between the ages of two and fifteen, we had last year
nearly four millions at school, and out of an estimated
population of 4,700,000 between five and thirteen, we had
3,300,000 at school.
Among this school population elementary science is at
last to be made a class subject, and we find mechanics,
mathematics, animal physiology and botany among the
specific subjects in addition to the three E's. 120,000
THE EDI TATTOX OF ARTTXANs
children received education in these subjects last year, and
if we are justified in assuming that as many will learn
science when it becomes a class subject as now already
learn drawing, we may expect in a year or two to have
this 120,000 swelled into three-quarters of a million.
I must again insist upon the fact that practical teaching
in science is the only thing that can be tolerated. Of
course, with a new subject, the great difficulty is the
difficulty of the teacher. Any system, therefore, of econo-
mising teaching power is of the highest importance. I
am glad to know that a system suggested by Col. Donnelly,
which uses the utmost economy of teaching power, has
been carried into admirable practical effect at Birmingham,
and I believe also at Liverpool, and other large towns.
So that in the most important centres we may be certain
that science will be taught in the best manner. It is
worth while to dwell on this system for a moment. Under
it practical teaching is given to boys and girls of the fifth
and higher standards, and also to the pupil teachers. The
subject chosen for the boys is mechanics, that for the girls
domestic economy, giving each of these subjects a wide
range of meaning. There is a central laboratory in which
the experiments are prepared, and from which the appa-
ratus ready for use is conveyed in a light hand-cart to the
various schools twenty-six in number in Birmingham-
belonging to the Board. In this way it is possible to give
twenty lessons a week, and the circuit of the schools can
be made in a fortnight. In the intervals between the
visits of the demonstrator the class teachers recapitulate
his lessons and give the children written examinations.
About 1,200 children are now being instructed in this way.
make the instruction as real as possible, children are
To make t
30 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
brought in to aid in performing the experiments, objects
are passed round and questioning at the end of the lecture
is encouraged. In the education, then, of our children
from the ages of five to thirteen, we may reasonably expect
to find that science teaching will in the future be carefully
looked after.
We now come to secondary education. Here, again,
great progress has been made during the last few years.
The real difficulties against its introduction have been
the overcrowded state of the old curriculum, the scarcity
of teachers, the want of sympathy with it, and the igno-
rance of its importance on the part of some headmasters.
But to those headmasters who held the view that no
real training could be got out of a subject which boys
studied with positive pleasure, parents began to reply that
whether the boy liked it or not he must get that know-
ledge somewhere. But where the experiment was really
tried under good conditions it was soon found not only
that the boys were willing to give three or four hours a
week of their playtime to scientific subjects, but that the
one or two hours filched from the curriculum were more
than made up for by the greater ease with which the
other subjects could be learnt, in consequence of the ad-
ditional training of the mind which the new subjects gave.
We may hope, then, that in the course of time our
secondary education may be much improved in the
direction indicated. What we may expect, taking the
principle of natural selection as our guide, will be this.
First, the headmasters will themselves be men chosen,
among other grounds, for their knowledge of science ;
they will become more and more all-round men. Next,
the curriculum will be arranged not for the few who go to
THE EDUCATION OF ARTIZAYv
the University, but for the many who do not. We shall
have more science and less Greek in the early years of
the school course. We shall have laboratories, and
drawing rooms, and workshops. In some schools we
may find modern living languages taught in a living way,
replacing the dead languages altogether. Now, here
our difficulties begin. We are face to face indeed with the
same difficulties which the Continental nations, our pre-
cursors in educational matters, have experienced. Our
secondary education is at the present moment all but
absolutely separated from the primary one. Of the
4,000,000 scholars on the books of elementary schools
last year there were only 44,000 over the age of fourteen,
and it is to be feared that the remainder left school at
that age, most of them, the best as well as the worst, to
fight the battle of life with such an education as they
had got up to that time. Germany, again, was the
first to find out that this would never do, even though in
r,hat country science and art were taught in the Primary
School ; and for the reason that though such a meagre
education might possibly do for ordinary workers in
their hives of industry, it was totally insufficient for the
future foremen, overseers and the like ; and special
schools were established to carry their education further.
Quite of late years this question has been studied in
the most interesting way in the Netherlands, under
the advice of a wise minister, whose example will be
followed some day in our own country.
Let me briefly refer to it.
This work began in 1863. In that year in Holland
there were no middle class or secondary schools for
artizans, but there were evMiini: schools for drawing
32 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
which dated from 1872. " Burgher Schools " were estab-
lished to provide the secondary instruction still felt
to be needed by those who otherwise would have to
content themselves with the primary instruction (although
in its more extended form it contained natural philosophy,
mathematics, and modern languages). In these schools-
some day, some night schools (in these the lessons went
on from September to May), with a course of two or
three years we find mathematics, theoretical and applied
mechanics, mechanism, physics, chemistry, natural
history, either technology or agriculture, drawing, gym-
nastics and other subjects among the fixed subjects,
modelling and foreign languages being permissive. These
burgher schools were compulsory in all parishes of 10,000
inhabitants. The evening burgher schools especially were
at once seized on with avidity, chiefly by apprentices and
the like.
Here let me give you some statistics which will show
you how these schools were working even ten years ago.
They are much more flourishing now, but I have not the
figures. The statistics will show how the Dutch (of
whom it cannot be said, to vary an old rhyme,
In matters of learning the fault of the Dutch
Is giving too little and asking too much,
for the instruction is practically free), who are already
learning a trade or working at one, use the evening hours
for the further cultivation of their minds.
Number of students in
Population. burgher schools.
Delft 23,000 171
Utrecht 64,000 283
Deventer 81,000 285
Dordrecht - 26,000 146
THE EDUCATION OF ARTIZANS. 33
Among the students at these schools in 1874 were 1,582
carpenters and joiners, 472 smiths, &c., 236 plumbers and
masons, 170 goldsmiths, engravers, &c., 320 painters, to
give examples. Higher burgher schools were also estab-
lished in the chief towns. In these schools still more
advanced instruction was given : and here the course
was for five years. In all these schools there was a
considerable State endowment and an endowment on
the part of the town, so that the fees were almost
nominal, and in some cases even the instruction was
gratuitous.
When I was inspecting these schools in Holland with an
eminent man of science, whose advice had helped largely
to make them such a success, and when I expressed to
him my astonishment at the smallness of the fees only
a very few shillings a year he put before me the question
of State aid to schools in a way which had never struck
me before. He said : " We regard it as a sort of educa-
tion insurance. A small tax is paid by everybody during
the whole of his life, and in this way a man who brings up
children for the service of the State is helped by him
who skirks that responsibility ; and the payment which
each citizen is called upon to make towards this instruc-
tion is spread over his whole life, and does not come
upon him when he is probably most pinched in other
ways."
Now for one practical result of the establishment of
these schools. The year 1863 found Holland full of the
notion that every hour a child spent away from the
desk or the bench after thirteen was time wasted ; but
after these burgher schools were instituted a change came
over the spirit of that dream, and now no employer of
c
34 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
labour in Holland, except of the lowest and most manual
kind, will look at a boy who cannot produce a certificate
from his burgher school.
Another very remarkable thing was soon observed,
with a most important moral for us. The great difference
between their burgher schools and the old gymnasia, the
equivalents of our grammar schools, was a gxeat infusion
of science into the teaching, and the introduction of
three modern languages in addition to Dutch ; Latin and
Greek being omitted altogether from the curriculum.
After four years of this training, many of the boys showed
such high promise that all connected with them thought it
a pity that they should not enter a university. They
were therefore, as an experiment, allowed six months to
take up Latin and Greek, and the result was that in a
great number of cases they beat the gymnasia boys in
their own subjects, and passed into the university with
flying colours. The Eeal Schule in Germany and the
modern sides of our own secondary schools are almost the
exact equivalents of the higher burgher schools to which
I have especially called your attention.
What, then, is the experience which has been gained in
these gigantic educational experiments ; experiments by
which we may profit, as we are so late in the race, if we
care to do so ? One point is that if a chance is put before
those who have passed through the elementary schools of
further culturing their minds, they seize upon it with
avidity. Another is that the employers of labour appre-
ciate the value of the greater intelligence thus brought
about. It is better to have to instruct in a trade men who
have shown themselves anxious to learn, than to have to
do with blockheads. Another, I think, is this : Your best
THE EDUCATION <>F ARTIZANS.
secondary school is best for everybody ; a secondary
school with a properly mixed curriculum of literature,
science and art, is best for him who proceeds either to the
university or to the workshop. A second-rate education
in a second-rate school gives us a second-rate man, and
we do not want our national industries to be worked
entirely by second-rate men. On this point I am glad to
fortify what I have said by a reference to Dr. Siemens's
important address at the Midland Institute some time
ago. He says :
" It is a significant fact that while the thirty universities of Ger-
many [you see they do not educate by halves in Germany, they have
seven times as many universities as we have in England] continued
to increase, both as regards number of students and high state of
efficiency, the purely technical colleges, almost without exception,
have during the last ten years been steadily receding, whereas the
provincial Gewerbe Schulen have, under the progressive minister, von
Falke, been modified so as to approximate their curriculum to that
of the <zvmnasium or grammar school. As regards middle-class educa-
tion, it must be borne in mind that at the age of sixteen, the lad is
expected to enter upon practical life, and it has been held that under
these circumstances at any rate it is best to confine the teaching to
as many subjects only as can be followed up to a point of efficiency
and have reference to future application. It is thus that the dis-
tinction between the German gymnasium or grammar school and
tlio Ilcal Sdiule or technical school has arisen, a distinction which,
though sanctioned to some extent in this country, also by the in-
stitution of tho modern side, I should much like to see abolished."
We see then the gradually increasing weight of opinion,
and the result of the experiments both in Germany
md Holland, and I may add France, point to these
conclusions.
Some kind of secondary education must be provided
for the best students when they leave the elementary
school, either before they begin work or while they are
C2
36 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
at work. Our secondary education should advance prac-
tically along one line, how far soever the student goes
along that line, some, of course, will go further than
others, provided always that it is the best possible, that is,
one having the broadest base.
Now, if this be generally conceded, our problem in
England, at the present moment, is simpler than we
thought it. We are face to face with the fact that it is
for the good of the nation that those who have passed most
successfully through the elementary education must con-
tinue that education in a secondary school ; whether for
two, or for three, or for six years, matters little for the
argument. Are we then to build technical schools for such
students ? Thirty years ago the answer would have been
yes. To-day we may say firmly, no. If a town has a
grammar-school, let the town see that the curriculum of
that school is based upon our best secondary models. If
the town has no such school, then let it build one. If one
school is not sufficient, then build two. That school will be
the best off in the long run which gives the greatest
number of free exhibitions from the elementary school
into such a school as this, and that town will be the wisest
which holds out such inducements at the earliest possible
moment.
I have lately read with much interest a copy of resolu-
tions and suggestions passed at a meeting of an Association
of Elementary Teachers in the north of England. From
these we may gather that this question is already one of
practical politics. It is agreed that the secondary educa-
tion of the best boys leaving the elementary schools must
not end there. It is also taken for granted that the
question lies between building a technical school or
THE EDUCATION OF ARTIZANS. 37
nlising the grammar school. One argument used in
favour of the latter course is, that the grammar school will
be strengthened by drawing to itself the best boys from
the elementary schools. The present proposals are that
a number of free scholarships should be competed for
annually, that these free scholarships shall, if need be, be
supplemented by exhibitions from the fund at the disposal
of the Governors (I should not accept this at once. Why
should not the town pay them ?), and the length of time
for which these scholarships shall be tenable is not to be less
than three years.
You see, then, that in the north of England, at all
events, it is conceded that the best children in our elemen-
tary schools should have a three years' course in a school
of higher grade in which all the class subjects in the
Elementary Code will be expanded, and all the linguistic
studies of the grammar school taken in hand. When this
system is at work, as it is bound to be in a few years, two
things will happen, and it is as well we should be prepared
for them. In the first place, our secondary schools all of
one model, the best model, let it be understood must so
arrange the curriculum, that the students can leave after a
three years' course, if need be, for the workshop or the
office, or after a longer course for the University. That is
the first point. The second one is this. The present
system of apprenticeship must be reconsidered. A
boy who has been educated to the age of sixteen will
learn very much more in three or four years, and will be
very much more valuable to his master during that time
than he who was formerly bound apprentice at the age of
thirteen or fourteen, with his fingers all thumbs and no
mind to speak of.
THE
UNIVERSITY
38 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGBESS.
It seems to me, as it does to a daily increasing number,
that the present mode of dealing with those matters which
were formerly regarded as arts and mysteries known only
to a few, and carried on on a small scale under the eye of
the master, is dead against the system of apprenticeship
as it has come down to us. Now the master does not
teach and the boy in nine cases out of ten has no oppor-
tunity of grasping the iwhole of the art or mystery at all.
Many of you will begin to think that you are listening to
the play of Hamlet with the part of the Prince of Denmark
omitted, for so far I have said nothing whatever about
technical education. I have said nothing about it for the
reason that I believe the less said to a boy about technical
education before he is sixteen years old the better. I now
proceed to discuss this question, which is far more im-
portant, far more a national question, than you would
gather from the debates in Parliament.
What is technical education ?
It is the application of the principles of science to the
industrial arts. And the rock ahead against which I am
anxious to join Dr. Siemens in warning you is this : Under
the influence of the present scare for it is a scare, and a
real one there is a chance that attempts may be made
to teach the applications to those who are ignorant of
principles, whereas we have to fight those who study
applications with a full knowledge of the principles which
underlie them.
We may congratulate ourselves on the fact that when
we have once made up our minds as to the right place of
technical instruction in our scheme of education, we have
much of the necessary machinery already at our disposal ;
and the recent action of the City Guilds and of the
THE EDUCATION OF ARTIZANS. 39
Government is enormously increasing the quantity and
improving the quality of this machinery.
Let us first consider the classes now formed all over the
country under the auspices of the Science and Art Depart-
ment. Their development in the last thirty years has
been something truly marvellous.
When the Queen, in 1852, opened Parliament, there
were already 35,000 students of art, but practically no
students of science, in this country, amongst the industrial
classes. That 35,000 will, if the present progress goes on,
give us nearly 1,000,000 students of art at the end of this
year ; while the science schools have increased from 82 in
1860 to 1,400 in 1880, with 69,000 students. The system
which has thus developed so enormously has dealt chiefly
with pure science, but for the future we shall have side by
side with it, and built upon the same lines, a system of
teaching the applications of this pure science to each of our
national industries. He who wishes in the future to have
to do in any way with the manufacture of alkali, gas, iron,
paper or glass, to take some instances, or in the dyeing of a
piece of silk or the making of a watch, to take others, will
find the teaching brought to his door and obtainable
almost for the asking.
Here, again, we may congratulate ourselves, for while
those who know most about the subject tell us that the
more ambitious attempts at technical instruction in Ger-
many and elsewhere have failed, because the teaching
is not in sufficiently close contact with the works in which
the processes are actually carried on, the system to which
I have drawn your attention will enable the instruction
to be given at night to those who have already begun
practical work during the day.
40 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
We have, then, come to this : that putting together
what is most desirable in the abstract, and what has been
practically proved to be the best, the education of our
industrial classes should be, and can easily be, something
like this. The boy will go to an elementary school till he
is thirteen. He will then pass with an exhibition, if neces-
sary, to a secondary school till he is sixteen. He will
there go on with his science now a class subject in the
elementary school and begin the study of languages.
At sixteen he will leave school and begin the battle of life,
and can still in the evening proceed further with his studies
in pure science, if the secondary education has left him too
ill-equipped in that direction. Having thus got the prin-
ciples of pure science into his mind he will be able to take
up the technical instruction in the particular industrial
art to which he is devoting himself.
But be the number of our future foremen and managers
who have had this extra three years of secondary instruc-
tion, large or small, if there be in Coventry let us say out
of your population of 45,000, 1,000 boys, or girls, or men,
who are anxious not only to learn science, but its appli-
cation to their particular industries, then the Government
is ready to endow Coventry with a sum varying from
2,000/. to 6,000/. a year, according to the results of the
examinations, if two subjects of pure science are taken
up, and the students pass. The City Guilds are pre-
pared to endow the town with from 1,000/. to 2,000/. a
year additional, provided some application of the principles
of science to the industrial arts is taken up, and evidence
forthcoming that the principles themselves have been
studied. Now if among your 45,000 there is not 1,000
who care for these things which are vital to your trades,
THE EDUCATION OF ARTIZANS.
41
iing that abroad these things are cared for, how can
your trades stand against foreign competition ? Let such
system as this go on for twenty years, and we shall hear
nothing more of the decay of our national industries.
Now here I am bound to point out a distinct gap in the
present system. We have classes for art, classes for pure
science, classes for applied science, but where are the classes
tr languages ?
The modern languages are taught so badly in our
condary schools, that it is hopeless to expect that suffi-
cient knowledge, either of French or German, can be ac-
[uired in the three years' course to enable the student
find out what his French and German rivals are doing
the branch of industry which he takes up ; and we
Lust, moreover, consider those who may wake up to the
importance of studying science and its technical applica-
tions after the chance of a secondary education is lost.
Such classes then are a real want.
But I will not end my address by a reference to what I
regard as an unfortunate gap, but would rather conclude
what I have to say by pointing out that the scheme I have
sketched out need be no Utopia, so far, at all events, as a
supply of well-trained teachers is concerned. This, up to
the present time, has been the real difficulty. But now
that the authorities at South Kensington have started
summer courses of lectures to teachers, and that they
Ptually pay the teachers for going to learn, the method
teaching, both in the elementary and secondary schools,
and evening classes, cannot fail to improve.
Quite recently, too, we have seen the inauguration of a
formal School, where Royal Exhibitioners and other free
idents are admitted without payment ; where the
42 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
teacher has the first claim, and where he can attend any
single course for a nominal fee.
Now every town of importance in the country should
associate itself with the Government in this attempt, and
should have one, at least, of its citizens always in training
there, so that the scientific instruction in that town, whether
primary, secondary or tertiary, should always be at its
highest level. On the other side of the road, too, at South
Kensington, is rapidly rising another institution where we
may hope the teachers of our technical instruction will
receive an equally careful training.
So that you see, to bring what I have to say to a con-
clusion, though we are late in the day, though many people
have not yet made up their minds as to what is best to be
done and I acknowledge that the question is hedged in
with difficulties on all sides there is an easy solution of
the difficulty based on the experience of other countries,
which is at the same time an act of simple justice ; that
this solution requires, if we adopt it, no dislocation, but
simply a natural growth of our existing means, and finally
that all the newest developments of our educational
machinery will fall naturally into place.
THE EDUCATION QUESTION IN 1883.
(1883.)
We are a long-suffering patient people. The call of
Luther to those around him to educate their children and
make men of them, as well as provide them with arms
a call at once answered in Germany is only just now
being answered among ourselves.
One of the most interesting and one of the most touching
sights in London now, and one which in our view is a
standing disgrace to the politicians who have held sway
during the last hundred years, is the gradual rising above
dingy roofs and millions of chimneys of the red brick
board schools. The children in London at all events are
now being educated, and our future masters are receiving
the first rudiments of their instruction, and this much
more on account of the intention of their fathers to have
it for them than on account of any far-seeing policy
of those who are popularly supposed to look in any and
every direction for anything that may conduce to the
well-being of our country.
We have at last got a public instruction, and it is
already in the air that that instruction will in time be
as free as it is now compulsory. It is a heartbreaking thing
to look back and think what might have been had these
all too recently built schools overtopped the squalid
44 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
dwellings of the poor a century ago. How much less
squalid those dwellings would be now ! The monumental
and extensive prisons would probably be less occupied in
their every cell than they are now, but the well-being
of the country, the output of the country, would have
been greater, and the struggle with penury, and dirt and
crime would have been less.
This is only one aspect of education, but yet it seems
that in this country, at all events, it is the mainspring of
public opinion with regard to the general question. The
cry on many grounds the mistaken cry for technical
instruction has grown from the work of the board schools ;
it has gone along the same line at a higher level, and it will
go on still further. The enormous development of the
Government Science and Art Classes will also go on, and
to the credit of the late Sir Henry Cole be it said here
that he was wiser than the politicians, and his clear sight
and single-mindedness influenced the head of the depart-
ment with which he was connected, so that the work in
science and art begun by the Prince Consort in 1851,
long before the present notions of the importance of
education really began to take root in our land, has been
making quiet progress.
Now that compulsory education is in our midst, now
that the importance of science and of art to the national
industries is being gradually acknowledged, now that it
is recognised that the education of our workmen must no
longer be so disgracefully neglected as it has been, it is
again suggested that there should be a Minister to look
after these matters.
Ten years ago, as it was well put, the Rinderpest was the
care of the Government side by side with the Einderpest.
THE EDUCATION QUESTION IN 1883. 45
were practically on the same level, both were
acknowledged to be nuisances, both might require a public
department to look after them, and then money would
have to be spent. This was quite a sufficient argument
with " statesmen " to let things go on in the old harum-
scarum way ; for the policy of a Government is to keep
money in its purse, honestly if it can, but in any case to
do so, as if England were a miser, acknowledging no
responsibilities, spurning all delights, and wishing to live a
sordid life like the burghers of old. caring only for their
dykes and pikes, who were shamed out of their
indifference centuries ago.
There has again been a suggestion made that there
should be a Minister of Public Instruction, who should
be responsible for the preparedness of the country in this
respect, just as the Minister of War is responsible for the
preparedness of it in another direction. As long ago as
1856 the late Lord Derby said :
" It appeared to him well worthy of consideration whether it would
not be well to have a Minister, or the head of a department, who should
have no other duties to perform, and who should be, in fact, respon-
sible for the education of the people ... He had a strong feeling
that the institution of a Minister of Instruction was desirable, that
the subject should be altogether separated from the Privy Council/'
But that did no good. In 1862 there was another reso-
lution put to the House, calling on it to affirm that for the
education estimates and for the expenditure of all moneys
for the promotion of education, science and art a Minister
of the Crown should be responsible to the House. That
also did no good. In 1865 a Select Committee was moved
for to inquire into the constitution of the Committee of the
uncil on Education. It was then urged that education
46 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
and science and art were beginning to be considered of
such importance that
*' The great duty of superintending the various branches connected
with the Department of Education should be intrusted to some one
responsible Minister, some Minister who should be regarded as a
State officer of high authority, who should have the sole conduct of
that department, and be solely responsible."
And that was shelved.
Nine years later, in 1874, the same view was urged, and
Mr. Gladstone as Prime Minister admitted
" That there was much to be said in favour of the general principle
that the expenditure of money for the promotion of education in science
and in art should be placed under the control of a single responsible
Minister."
It is true he said this, but he supported the previous
question, so that again came to nothing.
Now that education and science are the great things of
the day, not only in this but in all countries, England
enjoys the proud pre-eminence of being'the only country
civilised country, we know nothing of Timbuctoo in
which there is not a Minister of Public Instruction. It is
lamentable, terrible, to read the debates, and to see the
way in which the question was discussed. The importance
of education, the importance of science, the importance of
art the daily, almost hourly, increasing importance of
these things do not seem to have entered into the question.
To a large extent it was merely a question of Cabinet
convenience and Parliamentary tweedledum and tweedledee.
How can there be made room in the Cabinet for a Minister
of Public Instruction ? Are not the affairs of the Duchy of
Lancaster of much greater importance, and would not
the recognition of the""importance^of education r make
the Cabinet unwieldy and give rise to difficulties in
THE EDUC.mox QUESTION IN 1883. 4y
iamentary procedure ? And then there is the Scotch
business that must be looked after first, and so on, and
so on. Education is evidently not in the regions of
practical politics.
Heaven knows changes sufficiently great have been made
of late years, and it is not absolutely certain that the funda-
mental bearings of the nature of the changes to be made
have in all cases been fully considered ; but it seems as if
they are to be most carefully considered before any change
is made touching the matter of education.
Still it is acknowledged that the question is, after all,
one that deserves the attention of Parliament. Mr. Glad-
stone, however, had, as usual, three objections to make.
In the first place he expressed very great doubt whether,
if he had a plan ready to alter the present arrangement,
it would be wise to make any declaration on the subject by
way of motion. Secondly, he admitted that there was no
plan, and he did not think the time had arrived for one ; and
lastly, he considered that the subject ought to be a great
deal more examined before the House committed itself
to a final opinion whether there should be a plan or
not.
With reference to his first objection he stated that the
House knew perfectly well that administrative changes
are made piecemeal, and must continue to be so ; and he
remarked that there was a good deal to be said in favour of
what was called a patched house, because most of us found
it the most comfortable sort of house to live in. A Minis-
ter of Public Instruction would be a new patch, and as
there is patching going on elsewhere he objects to this ; and
so on. and so on.
The argument which he used in favour of the second
48 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
objection was, we imagine, the strongest he could have
used against it, namely, that the business of the Council
Office in respect to education has been in an almost
incessant state of flux and change ; there can be no doubt
that the flux and change will get more pronounced as time
goes on. That is the very reason why everything should
be brought to a focus.
We may gather from Mr. Gladstone's speech that the
Universities should ever, in his opinion, remain divorced
from the general question of education ; but if so, what
is to become of Professor Huxley's ladder from the gutter
to the university ?
It is worth while to cull the following from the speech
of Mr. Foster, an old Vice-President of the Committee
of the Council on Education :
" The Committee of the Council for Trade, or Agriculture, or Educa-
tion meant nothing whatever. Persons might imagine that the Privy
Council occasionally met for the transaction of business, but they
never did so either in England or Ireland. The Minister for Agri-
culture was the President of the Committee of the Council on Agri-
culture, but he greatly doubted whether that Committee ever met, or
ever would meet. . . The real objection (to Sir John Lubbock's proposal)
probably was that it was undesirable to make too much of education,
that if we were to have a Minister of Education he might be pushing
things on too quickly. . . There might be a fea: that under one Minister
too much money would be spent. . . What was complained of now was
that there was no really defined responsibility. The man who moved
the Estimates and did the work was not the head of a Department,
and he ought to be. The work was done by a Minister who was con-
trolled by another, and the latter was scarcely seen by the public.
He did not see why we should continue that Japanese mode of managing
affairs."
It is satisfactory to see that the House of Commons is
gradually getting into a better position to discuss such
questions as these, but we have felt that the main point is
THE EDUCATION QUESTION IX U
that the head of the Government does not yet consider
that the question of education is one of importance suffi-
cient to be discussed side by side with what in his opinion
is the much larger question of Parliamentary procedure
It is true a Select Committee has been agreed to, but it is
to be feared that after Mr. Gladstone's speech very little
will come of it, as has happened before.
The result remains that we are not to have a Minister
of Education. There is agricultural business, including
the rinderpest and other matters, and these are larger
questions than that of national education ! Therefore
national education must wait. As was said before, we
are a long-suffering and patient people. There is, how-
ever, little doubt that in some political programme of
the future this question will find a place ; equal electoral
districts and the payment of members are not the only
things to be cared for.
LOKD PLAYFAIR AND OTHERS ON OUR
EDUCATIONAL NEEDS.
(1885.)
If it be fair to forecast the success of a meeting of the
British Association by the quality of the addresses delivered
by the various presidents, then it may be predicted that
the meeting in 1885 at Aberdeen, with Lyon Playfairas
President, will long stand out among its fellows.
The growing use, as well as the growing feeling for the
need, of scientific methods comes out in a most unmistak-
able way, while there is no fear that either hearers or
readers will be lulled into a sleepy hollow of satisfaction
or a rest-and-be-thankful feeling. For that much remains
to be done even in the way of initial organisation both of
teaching and working is frankly and fearlessly acknow-
ledged by several of the speakers.
These present needs, pointed out by the President of the
Association himself, who speaks both as a man of science
and a politician, may well occupy our attention. No one
knows better than Sir Lyon Playfair how science can aid
the body politic, or knows better how each party when in
office neglects or uses this powerful engine for the nation's
good. He begins by quoting these noble words from the
address of the President at the Aberdeen meeting in 1859
the lamented Prince Consort :
OUR EDUCATIONAL NEEDS. 51
" We may be justified in hoping . . . that the Legislature and the State
svill more and inure recognise the claims of science to their attention^
so that it may no longer require the begging box, but speak to the
State like a favoured child to its parent, sure of his paternal solicitude
for its welfare ; that the State will recognise in science one of its
elements of strength and prosperity, to foster which the clearest dictates
of self-interest demand."
One can get no better idea of the Philistine condition
of the Government and of the House of Commons in
matters of science than from the fact that much of what
follows in the President's Address has not been said in the
House itself instead of at Aberdeen. The real reason,
perhaps, is to be gathered from a remark made by Pro-
fessor Chrystal in his address in Section A :
" We all have a great respect for the integrity of our British legis-
lators, whatever doubts may haunt us occasionally as to their capacity
in practical affairs. The ignorance of many of them regarding some
of the most elementary facts that bear on every-day life is very sur-
prising. Scientifically speaking, uneducated themselves, they seem
to think that they will catch the echo of a fact or the solution of an
arithmetical problem by putting their ears to the sounding-shell of
uneducated public opinion. When I observe the process which many
such people employ for arriving at what they consider truth, I often
think of a story I once heard of an eccentric German student of
chemistry. This gentleman was idle, but, like all his nation, systematic,
When he had a precipitate to weigh, instead of resorting to his balance,
he would go the round of the laboratory, hold up the test-tube before
each of his fellow-students in turn, and ask him to guess the weight.
He set down all the replies, took the average, and entered the result
in his analvsis."
Now if this view of our legislators is shared by men of
such acumen as Sir Lyon Playfair and others in the House
of Commons more or less connected with science, we can
well understand their silence in the modern council of the
nation which so little resembles the Witanagemote of
former times,
D2
52 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
In his pleading for more State recognition of science
the President points out the present activity of Ger-
many and France, and especially of the United States :
"... Both France and Germany make energetic efforts to advance
science with the aid of their national resources. More remarkable
is it to see a young nation like the United States reserving 150,000,000
acres of national lands for the promotion of scientific education. In
some respects this young country is in advance of all European nations
in joining science to its administrative offices. Its scientific pub-
lications, like the great palaeontological work embodying the re-
searches of Professor Marsh and his associates in the Geological Survey,
are an example to other Governments. The Minister of Agriculture
is surrounded with a staff of botanists and chemists. The Home
Secretary is aided by a special scientific Commission to investigate
the habits, migrations and food of fishes, and the latter has at its
disposal two specially constructed steamers of large tonnage. The
United States and Great Britain promote fisheries on distinct systems.
In this country we are perpetually issuing expensive Commissions
to visit the coasts in order to ascertain the experiences of fishermen.
I have acted as Chairman of one of these Royal Commissions, and
found that the fishermen, having only a knowledge of a small area,
gave the most contradictory and unsatisfactory evidence. In America
the questions are put to Nature, and not to fishermen. Exact and
searching investigations are made into the life-history of the fishes,
into the temperature of the sea in which they live and spawn, into the
nature of their food and into the habits of their natural enemies.
For this purpose the Government give the co-operation of the Navy
and provide the Commission with a special corps of skilled naturalists,
some of whom go out with the steamships, and others work in the
biological laboratories at Wood's Hall, Massachusetts, or at Washing-
ton. . . The practical results flowing from those scientific investiga-
tions have been important. The inland waters and rivers have been
stocked with fish of the best and most suitable kinds. Even the
great ocean which washes the coasts of the United States is begin-
ning to be affected by the knowledge thus acquired, and a sen-
sible result is already produced upon the most important of its
fisheries. The United Kingdom largely depends upon its fisheries,
but as yet our own Government have scarcely realised the value of
such scientific investigations as those pursued with success by the
United States."
OUR EDUCATIONAL NEEDS.
He quotes with approval a passage from Washington's
farewell to his countrymen : " Promote as an object of
primary importance institutions for the general diffusion
of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a Govern-
ment gives force to public opinion it is essential that
public opinion should be enlightened." He next points
out that it was not till 1870 that England established a
system of education at all, and that now, while all great
countries except our own have Ministers of Education, we
have only Ministers who are managers of primary schools.
Passing on to the State need of abstract knowledge
we read as follows :
" All, the son-in-law of Mahomet, the fourth successor to the Cali-
phate, urged upon his followers that men of science and their disciples
give security to human progress. Ali loved to say, ' Eminence in science
is the highest of honours ' ; and ' He dies not who gives life to learn-
In addressing you upon texts such as these my purpose was
show how unwise it is for England to lag in the onward march of
science when most other European Powers are using the resources
of their States to promote higher education and to advance the boun-
daries of knowledge. English Governments alone fail to grasp
the fact that the competition of the world has become a competition
in intellect."
10 U
&
have seen how Sir Lyon Playfair twits the heads of
the Education Department with being merely managers
of primary schools. The President of the Chemical
Section, Professor Armstrong, also shows reason why
their functions must be expanded if science is ever to get
on here. He holds that without State action the diffi-
culties which at present prevent the existing teaching
institutions from exercising their full share of influence
upon the advancement of our national prosperity are all
but insuperable. He foresees the objection that such an
interference would deprive teaching centres of their
54 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
individuality, but he denies that this must necessarily
follow, and we know no one who has a better right to
express an opinion on such a subject.
Some part, indeed, of Professor Armstrong's address is
terrible reading. The present chemical education and
chemical examinations in this country are, according to him,
to a large extent shams and worse. The students who
come to the centres of higher instruction are scarcely
reasoning beings they have never been brought to
reason ; and at those centres the instruction has been
of too technical a character, while hardly anywhere
is there an atmosphere of research. He points out,
among many other matters, the vital importance of the
research atmosphere, and he frankly states the difficulties
felt by earnest men. Many of the remarks so often made
now touching the absence of research in our chemical
laboratories apply not to such men as him, but to those
whose trading spirit and proclivities are well known men
who discredit the profession to which they belong. Still,
it is well that the difficulties should be fairly recorded,
especially in juxtaposition with a statement that absence
of research must always indicate the absence of teaching
worthy of the name.
A complete revision of the present system, both of
teaching and examining in chemistry, is, therefore, accord-
ing to Professor Armstrong, one of the most pressing of
our present needs.
Are the other sciences better off ? Certainly not mathe-
matics if Professor Chrystal has a right to speak for that
branch :
" All men practically engaged in teaching who have learned enough,
in spite of the defects of their own early training, to enable them to
>UCATIONAL NEEDS.
:ake a broad view of the matter, are agreed as to the canker which
turns everything that is good in our educational practice to evil. It
is the absurd prominence of written competitive examinations that
rks all this mischief."
-
i
But some may think that in the setting of problems
mathematics teachers have an advantage over others in
preventing unintelligent cramming. This is not Professor
hrystal's opinion :
?i
stvl
5
" The history of this matter of problems, as they are called, illustrates
n a singularly instructive way the weak point of our English system
education. They originated, I fancy, in the Cambridge Mathe-
atical Tripos Examination, as a reaction against the abuses of cram-
ming bookwork, and they have spread into almost every branch of
science teaching witness test-tubing in chemistry. At first they
may have been a good thing ; at all events the tradition at Cambridge
was strong in my day, that he that could work the most problems
in three or two and a half hours was the ablest man, and, be he ever
so ignorant of his subject in its width and breadth, could afford to
despise those less gifted with this particular kind of superficial sharp-
ness. But, in the end, it all came to the same ; we were prepared for
:blem working in exactly the same way as for bookwork. We
e directed to work through old problem papers, and study the
..^.e and peculiarities of the day and of the examiner. The day and
the examiner had, in truth, much to do with it, and fashion reigned in
problems as in everything else. The only difference I could ever see
between problems and bookwork was the greater predominance of the
inspiriting element of luck in the former. This advantage was more
n compensated for by the peculiarly disjointed and, from a truly
ientific point of view, worthless nature of the training which was
employed to cultivate this species of mental athletics. The result,
so far as problems worked in examinations go, is, after all, very miser-
able, as the reiterated complaints of examiners show ; the effect on
the examinee is a well-known enervation of mind, an almost incurable
superficiality, which might be called Problematic Paralysis a disease
which unfits a man to follow an argument extending beyond the
length of a printed octavo page."
As to the crying present need, Professors Ohrystal
d Armstrong are at one. We want a higher ideal
56 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
of education in general, and of scientific education in
particular :
" Science cannot live among the people and scientific education
cannot be more than a wordy rehearsal of dead text-books, unless we
have living contact with the working minds of living men. It takes
the hand of God to make a great mind, but contact with a great mind
will make a little mind greater. The most valuable instruction in any
art or science is to sit at the feet of a master, and the next best to have
contact with another who has himself been so instructed. No agency
that I have ever seen at work can compare for efficiency with an intelli-
gent teacher who has thoroughly made his subject his own. It is by
providing such, and not by sowing the dragon's teeth of examinations,
that we can hope to raise up an intelligent generation of scientifically
educated men who shall help our race to keep its place in the struggle
of nations. In the future we must look more to man and to ideas,
and trust less to mere systems. Systems have had their trial. In
particular, systems of examinations have been tested and found wanting
in nearly every civilised country on the face of the earth."
What we have written will show what food for thought
in the matter of our present needs has been provided at
Aberdeen for those gathered together for the advancement
of science. Surely the three addresses specially referred to
suggest a gap in the organisation of the Association. Why
should there not be a section to deal specially with the
question of education and research ?
SCIENCE AND EDUCATION DURING VICTORIA'S
REIGN.
(1887.)
Most of the celebrations connected with the fiftieth
anniversary of the Queen's accession will soon have taken
place ; and in London, at all events, the gorgeous cere-
monials now being prepared will have been the admiration
of hundreds and thousands of Her Majesty's loyal subjects.
It is therefore quite right and fitting that we should
dwell for one moment on the subject now uppermost in all
minds, and dear to most British hearts. In loyalty the
idents of Nature in these islands are second to none,
id their gladness at the happy completion of the fifty
' reign, and their respect for the fifty years' pure and
jautiful life, are also, we believe, second to none. But
te satisfaction which they feel on these grounds is tem-
ired when they consider, as men of science must, all the
conditions of the problem.
The fancy of poets and the necessity of historians have
from time to time marked certain ages of the world's history
and distinguished them from their fellows. The golden
age of the past is now represented by the scientific age of
the present. Long after the names of all men who have
lived on this planet during the Queen's reign, with the ex-
ception of such a name as that of Darwin, are forgotten,
58 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL
when the name of Queen Victoria even has paled, it will
be recognised that in the latter half of the nineteenth cen-
tury a new era of the world's history commenced. What-
ever progress there has been in the history of any nation
during the last fifty years and this is truer of England
than of any other country the progress has been mainly
due to labourers in the field of pure science, and to the
applications of the results obtained by them to the purposes
of our daily and national life.
It is quite true that some men of Science take a pride in
the fact that all this scientific work has been accomplished
not only with the minimum of aid from the State, but
without any sign of sympathy with it on the part of the
powers that be.
We venture to doubt whether this pride is well founded.
It is a matter of fact, whatever the origin of the fact may
be, that during the Queen's reign, since the death of the
lamented Prince Consort, there has been an impassable
gulf between the highest culture of the nation and royalty
itself. The brain of the nation has been divorced from
the head.
Literature and science, and we might almost add art,
have no access to the throne. Our leaders in science, our
leaders in letters, are personally unknown to Her Most
Gracious Majesty. We do not venture to think for one
moment that either Her Majesty or the leaders in question
suffer from this condition of things ; but we believe it to
be detrimental to the State, inasmuch as it must end by
giving a perfectly false perspective ; and to the thoughtless
the idea may rise that a great nation has nothing whatever
to do either with literature, science or art that, in short,
culture in its widest sense is a useless excrescence, and
SfirKNTJK AND
properly unrecognised by royalty on that account, while
the true men of the nation are only those who wield
the sword, or struggle for bishoprics or for place in some
political party for pay and power.
The worst of such a state of things is that a view which is
adopted in high quarters readily meets with general accep-
tance, and that even some of those who have done good
service to the cause of learning are tempted to decry
the studies by which their spurs have been won.
If literature is a "good thing to be left," as Sir George
Trevelyan has told us, if Mr. Morley, the politician, looks
back with a half-contemptuous regret to the days when he
occupied a " more humble sphere " as a leader of literature,
if students are recommended to cultivate research only " in
the seed-sowing time of life ; " are not these things a proof
that something is " rotten in the State," even in this Jubilee
year ? It surely is well that literature, science and art
should be cultivated by men who are willing to lay aside
vulgar ambition of wealth and rank, if only they may add
to the stock of knowledge and beauty which the world
possesses. It surely is not well that no intellectual pre-
eminence should condone for the lack of wealth or political
place, and that as far as neglect can do it each scientific and
literary man should be urged to leave work, the collective
performance of which is nevertheless essential to the vitality
of the nation.
It would seem that this view has some claims for con-
sideration when we note what happens in other civilised
countries. If we take Germany, or France, or Italy, or
Austria, we find there that the men of science and literature
are recognised as subjects who can do the State some ser-
vice, and as such are freely welcomed into the councils of
60 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
the Sovereign. With us it is a matter of course that every
Lord Mayor shall, and every President of the Royal Society
shall not, be a member of the Privy Council ; and a British
Barnum may pass over a threshold which is denied to a
Darwin, a Stokes or a Huxley. Our own impression is
that this treatment of men of culture does not depend upon
the personal feelings of the noble woman who is now our
Queen. We believe that it simply results from the ignor-
ance of those by whom Her Majesty is, by an unfortunate
necessity, for the most part surrounded. The courtier
class in England is and it is more its misfortune than its
fault interested in few of those things upon which the
greatness of a nation really depends. Literary culture
some of them may have obtained at the universities, but
of science or of art, to say nothing of applied science and
applied art, they for the most part know nothing ; and to
bring the real leaders of England between themselves and
the Queen's Majesty would be to commit a betise for which
they would never be forgiven in their favourite coteries.
No subject still less a courtier should be compelled to
demonstrate his own insignificance. That this is the real
cause of the present condition of things which is giving rise
to so many comments that we can no longer neglect them,
is, we think, further evidenced by the arrangements that
have been made for the Jubilee ceremonial in Westminster
Abbey. The Lord Chamberlain and his staff, who are
responsible for these arrangements, have, it is stated, in-
vited only one Fellow of the Royal Society, as such, to be
present in the Abbey ; while with regard to literature we
believe not even this single exception has been made. It
may be an excellent thing for men of science like Professor
Huxley, Professor Adams and Dr. Joule, and such a man of
SCIENCE AND THE QUEEN'S REIGN.
iterature as Mr. Robert Browning, that they should not be
[uired to attend at such a ceremonial, but it is bad for the
ceremonial. The same system has been applied to the
Government officials themselves. Thus, the department
>ponsible for science and art has, we believe, received four
ickets, while thirty-five have, according to Mr. Plunket's
itement in the House, been distributed among the lower
lerks in the House of Commons. Her Gracious Majesty
suffers when a ceremonial is rendered not only ridiculous
but contemptible by such maladministration. England
is not represented, but only England's paid officials and
; bodies.
While we regret that there should be these notes of dis-
rd in the present condition of affairs, there can be no
question that Her Majesty may be perfectly assured that
the most cultured of her subjects are among the most loyal
to her personally, and that they join with their fellow-
subjects in many lands in hoping that Her Majesty may be
long spared to reign over the magnificent Empire on which
the sun never sets, and the members of which science in the
future will link closer together than she has been able to do
in the past.
EDUCATION AND INDUSTRY.
(1895.)
At last the daily press is beginning to see the necessity
of State action to prevent as far as possible the ruining
of many of our industries threatened by the development
of scientific research and processes in other countries.
The Times* has spoken out with no uncertain sound
in connection with the often repeated cases in which,
in various foreign markets, English are being replaced by
German goods. The paragraph to which we refer runs as
follows :
" Our Berlin correspondent called attention two days ago to the
immense strides made by German industry during the last quarter
of a century, and to the failure of our Government to pay any adequate
attention to a development so closely concerning British interests. In
this commercial age this industrial nation has one commercial Attache
in Paris who is supposed to keep an eye upon all Europe, and one at St.
Petersburg, who has all Asia for his province. A commercial Attache
at Berlin for Germany alone would find ample occupation and would
furnish knowledge of things that deeply concern us, which it may be
feared neither the Government nor the mercantile classes of this country
possess at present. We also require urgently a commercial Attache
with especial qualifications for the Par East. Yesterday our Paris
correspondent informed us that on his first appearance as Minister
for Foreign Affairs M. Berthelot asked money for the establishment
of six new consulates in China. The contrast is sufficiently striking
* November 27, 1895,
between the policy of the two countries and the difference runs through
the entire treatment of the material interests of the two peoples. Both
in Germany and in France it is held an essential part of the duty of the
State to second, and not only to second, but to stimulate and direct
the efforts of private enterprise. In this country, though State inter-
ference with commerce is being carried to a dangerous length, State
stance, even in the way of collecting information, is regarded with
stupid distrust and disfavour. Our home industries themselves in many
oa languish for want of intelligent direction. Our agricultural
distress might be alleviated were the State not far above the education
of the population in the minor agricultural arts, and the organisation
of agricultural industries after the manner in vogue on the Continent.
In the same way, although nothing can excuse the short-sighted folly
of our manufacturing classes in not providing for scientific research in
the various branches of industry, yet it is the duty of a wise Govern-
ment to take measures to counteract the folly of classes when it threatens
the general interest. In one word, Great Britain stands at this moment
in imminent danger of being beaten out of the most lucrative fields of
commerce, simply because it does not recognise, while other nations
do, the value of scientific organisation in the field, in the workshop, in
the laboratory and in the conduct of national policy."
The public meeting to promote a memorial to Huxley
reminds us how much we have lost how much weaker
we are for his absence. Never was Huxley more emphatic
than when he pleaded, years ago, for the organisation of
our scientific forces, so as to secure the victories of peace.
It is now certain that we have lost many of these peaceful
battles, and that we shall lose more, because our legislators
have either not read the signs of the times, or have been
led by those who, if they were consistent, would bring
back our Navy to its state in Queen Elizabeth's time,
when it was the outcome of individual and local effort.
It is encouraging to think that when the attention of
the commercial classes has been drawn to what is happen-
ing, as it must be before long, and when the public will
possess full knowledge of the utter chaos of our public
64 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
departments in all things appealing to the national life
so far as it depends upon commercial enterprise under
the existing conditions, some action must be taken.
We have Committees of the Privy Council for this and
that and the other departments, but where are the
Scientific Privy Councillors ? Where are the meetings
held at which they give the State the benefit of their
knowledge ? In what record do we find the minutes of
such " My Lords " as these ?
It is not fair even to the administrators of the several
departments that the present state of things should be
allowed to exist. Too few of these have been chosen on
account of their scientific knowledge, and as each question
arises they have to pick up their information as best
they can. There are several ways of doing this, one
of them indicated by the Board of Trade inquiry into
the revised regulations referring to the Electric Lighting
Acts. The Conference showed conclusively how much
the Department gained by the free imparting of know-
ledge by outsiders,
But this is only one direction in which reforms are
needed. The Chambers of Commerce throughout the
country must sooner or later take the matter up ; and
when this is done, many other ways of abolishing the
existing chaos will suggest themselves,
SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION IN GERMANY AND
ENGLAND.
(1896.)
Professor Ramsay has done good service by communi-
iting to The Times a letter he has received from Professor
jtwald of the highest importance at the present time,
when, fortunately for us, German supremacy along many
lines of applied science and the causes of it are being
at last recognised.
No one has a better right to speak on this subject than
Professor Ostwald, and the fact that we may take his com-
munication as one made in the interests of British science
makes it all the more valuable.
What he says will be no news to those who for years
past have been pointing out the rocks ahead and the steps
necessary to avoid them ; but their voice has been as that
of one crying in the wilderness. Fortunately for us this
is so no longer. The Times devotes a leader to Dr. Ost-
w a Id's letter, but it does not appear that even The Times
in real touch with the actual position.
"The Germans have found that nothing pays so well as knowledge,
and that m>\\ knowledge always pays in the long run. They acton this
principle by maintaining a steady demand for men competent to extend
the domain of theoretical knowledge, p. tying them well for doing it, and
taking their chance of one valuable practical discovery turning up
long a score that for the present lead to nothing. How good that
G6 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
chance is may be judged from the enormous success attending German
chemical industries of all kinds. Germany controls the fine chemical
markets of the world, and that means that she takes tax and toll of
almost every industry in every country. How easily we might have
forestalled her can be fully understood only by those who know what
a splendid start we had in capital, in machinery, in control of markets,
and in root ideas. Some of her most lucrative industries have been
developed out of English discoveries, due to the genius of individual
Englishmen, but never properly grasped and worked out by English
manufacturers. Her commercial domain will go on extending, and ours
proportionately shrinking, unless Englishmen become practical enough
to look beyond their noses, and wise enough to believe in knowledge."
This is excellent ; but then we are also told
" For any healthy reform we want driving power, and the driving
power must come from manufacturers enlightened enough to understand
the secret of German success and English failure. It is industry that
must endow research, not from any unpractical desire to add to the
number of useless persons who know all that has been done, yet do not
know how to do anything new, but from the very practical desire of
manufacturers to extend their business and add to their profits."
And again :
" There is a clamour now and again for State aid, and Dr. Ostwald's
letter will, perhaps, stimulate it, because he refers to the action of the
State in Germany. But the root of the matter in Germany lies in private
enterprise, and it must do so here. Heaven helps those who help
themselves, and the State cannot do better than observe the same
limitation. When industry endows research it will be time to ask for
assistance from the taxpayer. Until then State endowment of research
can mean little more than throwing money away upon abstract acquire-
ments having no real relation to the facts of national prosperity."
Let us accept for a moment that " industry," " manu-
facturers," and " private enterprise " in Britain at once
proceed to do all that The Times lays at their doors.
What then ? Professor Ostwald answers this question by
telling us what the Prussian Government and the various
German States have done and are doing for research
and scientific education, above and beyond all the efforts
GERMAN" EDUCATIONAL METHODS. 07
made by German " industry," " manufacturers " and
" private enterprise."
In such a competition Britain, without the State aid so
amply and wisely given in Germany, is certain to lose.
It has already been pointed out, and it is worth while to
re-state it, that the connection between out national
greatness, our national defences and our commerce, is
universally recognised, and that the State spends, and
properly spends, tens of millions a year, the protection
of our commerce being assigned as one of the ostensible
reasons.
But another thing which as yet is not generally re-
cognised is that so surely as our national greatness is
based upon our industries, as surely in the future must
our industries be based upon science.
It is clear, therefore, that if in other countries the
advancement of science is the duty not only of individuals,
but of States, mere individual effort in any one country
must be crushed out in the international competition
which is growing keener and keener every day.
Taking things as we find them, we spend tens of millions
a year to protect our commerce which is a measure of our
industries ; while the basis of these, science, is to remain
unprotected, unorganised and unaided, except by local
efforts and the action of individuals.
Surely such a contention cannot be seriously main-
tained such inconsistent action can have no logical
basis. The real remedy lies in consistently organising
both our peace and our war forces, as Huxley pointed
out many years ago. We have now a War or Industries-
protecting Council : by the side of it we want a Peace
>r Industries-producing Council ; in other words, a strong
68 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
Minister of Science, who shall have as complete a staff of
men of science to advise him as the President of the
War Council finds himself provided with in the heads of
the Army and Navy Departments.
Only in this way can Germany's flank be turned. If
it were only a question of ironclads how readily every-
body would agree.
Another part of Professor Ostwald's letter, ior which
thanks are due, is that in which he points out that in
Germany research is as important an engine in Education
as it is in a Chemical Works ; so that again the call upon
" private enterprise " is not sufficient.
Here, of course, the whole question of our University
organisation is raised. We cannot pursue it now, but we
may quote a pregnant passage from Professor Fitzgerald
" The most serious cause of complaint of modern society against the
old universities is that they have so controlled the education of the
wealthy classes of the community, that the landed and professional
classes have been educated apart from the commercial and industrial
classes, to the very great injury of both."
This is the reason that the true condition of things has
not been appreciated long ago. It is not understood,
and therefore it is not believed. Our political leaders,
the permanent chiefs of the various public departments,
have not the slightest idea what all this fuss is about,
because their education has been entirely apart from
those regions of thought and work in which in the future
the peaceful battles of the world will be fought and won ;
if not by us, then by others, for fighting there must be.
No better argument could be found for the establish-
ment of a ministry and council of science than was afforded
by two speeches delivered some little time ago by the
Duke of Devonshire on matters connected with scientific
CKRMAX F/nrr.moXAL METHODS
education. The Duke candidly confessed at Birmingham
that he was not placed at the head of the educational and
scientific affairs of the country on account of any special
knowledge of the subjects, for " his knowledge of science
and art could be compressed into two nutshells." It is
not our desire to utter one word against the Duke of
Devonshire for his candour ; he has shown that he is
interested in technical education, and has on more than
one occasion assisted the work of science. But what
we do criticise is the political system which does not
consider it necessary that the educational and scientific
welfare of the country should be the business of those
who are able to appreciate the work done, to see the
necessity of reforms, and to know the directions in which
developments should take place. In almost every other
country the State or Government has official men of
science among its servants, and also constantly asks the
advice and assistance of their academies and learned
ieties, when questions of technical and scientific public
terest are under discussion ; but here no such use is
e, either of the societies as a whole, or of the men
o constitute them.
[Professor Ostwald's letter ran as follows ; it is so im-
E'tant that I reprint it here :
In our frequent (Us US-MOMS 0:1 s, icntili- education. we have both
n been struck with smiif points of very great difference between
the Knulish and the German way of dealing with it. As it may be
tried without national arrogance that University education is in
(rermanv in a more satisfactory condition than in your country, you
f course, anxious to know which of tin- German eustomfl I consider
most elTectiYe in l>rin,uin,u f al>out this better staff of things; and I
will, therefore, try to point them out. Of GOUne, I shall confine
If to the Mibject of natural science, and especially chemistry
?0 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
and physics, feeling myself unable to deal with sciences beyond my
knowledge. The main point of our system may be expressed in on
word freedom freedom of teaching and freedom of learning. The
first involves for the teacher the necessity of forming in his mind a
clear conception of the scope of his science, for, as he is free to choose
any possible method of view, he feels himself answerable for the particu-
lar one he has chosen. And in the same way the student feels himself
responsible for the method and the subject of his studies, inasmuch
as he is free to choose any teacher and any subject. One who has not
seen this system in action may be inclined to think that such a system
must lead to arbitrary and irresponsible methods on the side of the
teacher, and to confusion on the part of the student. But the former is
avoided, because at the beginning of his career the teacher is dependent
for his advancement on the results of his scientific views, and is naturally
anxious to improve his position in the educational world. And as
for the students, they themselves impose certain restrictions on their
own freedom. Most of them feel that they require some advice and
guidance, and they therefore follow the usual and approved order in
conducting their studies. As to the inventive man of original ideas,
it has often been proved that for him any way is almost as good as
any other, for he is sure to do his best anywhere. Moreover, such
a man very soon excites the interest of one of his teachers, and is
personally led by him, generally to the great advantage of both.
"Let me illustrate these general remarks by considering the course
followed by an average chemist. In his first half-year he hears lectures
on inorganic chemistry, physics, mineralogy, sometimes botany, and
of late often differential calculus. Moreover, the German student is
accustomed to take a more or less strong interest in general philosophy
or history, and to add in his Bdegbuch (list of lectures) to the above-
named Fachcollegien (specialised studies) one or two lectures on phil-
osophy, general or German history, or the like. Very often there
are in the University one or more popular professors whose lectures
are heard by students of all faculties without reference to their specual
studies. The student who has heard during his stay at the University
only lectures belonging strictly to his Fach is not well thought of
and is to some extent looked down on as a narrow specialist. But
I must add that such views are not prevalent in all faculties, and there
are some e.g., the faculty of law whose students confine themselves,
with few exceptions, to attending exclusively lectures in that faculty.
" In the second half-year the chemical student begins with practical
laboratory work. Notwithstanding the perfect freedom of the teachers,
GfiRMAN EDUCATIONAL METHODS. 71
the system first introduced by Liebig into his laboratory at Giessen is
still universally adopted in German universities and technical high
schools viz., qualitative and quantitative chemical analysis, the
former conjoined with simple spectroscopic work, the latter amplified
by volumetric analysis. This is followed by a course of chemical
preparations, formerly chiefly inorganic, now chiefly organic. Even
here, a regular system is being widely developed owing to the use of
some well-known text-books. Of late years this course is followed
in some laboratories by a series of exercises in physical chemistry
and electro-chemistry.
"While these practical exercises, which last for three or four half"
years, are being carried out, the student completes his knowledge
of physics, mathematics, and the other allied sciences by hearing
lectures and working practically in the physical and often also in some
other laboratory. The exercises done, he goes to the professor and
asks him for a ' theme ' to begin his ' work ' viz., his dissertation
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. This is the most important
moment in his life as a student, for it generally determines the special
line of his future career. The c theme ' is usually taken from the
particular branch of the subject at which the professor himself is
working ; but, as the scientific name and position of the professor
depends, not only on his own work, but to a large extent on the work
issuing from his laboratory, he is careful not to limit himself to too
narrow a range of his science.
" Of course it is best of all if the student selects for himself a suitable
' theme,' suggested to him by his lectures or practical work, or from
private study of the literature of the science. But this seldom happens,
for the young student is not yet able to discern the bearing of special
questions and lacks knowledge how to work them out. Sometimes
(but not very often, indeed) he points out to his professor in a general
way the kind of problems he would like to work at, and the professor
suggests to him a special problem out of this range of subjects. During
tin* working out of his chosen subject the student learns generally
much morn than he has heard at lectures. Every part of the investiga-
tion forces him to revise the scientific foundations of the operations
lie | MM- forms. During this time the incidental short lectures given
by the professor on his daily round from one to another of the advanced
students are most eflertive in deepening and strengthening the student's
knowledge. As these explanatory remarks are generally heard, not
only by the student whose work has caused them, but also by a number
of fellow-students working near, a fairly wide range of scientific
EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
questions are dealt with in their hearing. Often these small lectures
develop themselves into discussions, and, as for myself, I judge from
the frequency of such discussions between the students whether the
session will turn out a good one or not. If the professor thinks the
work sufficiently complete to be used as a dissertation, the student
proceeds to the close of his studies. He prepares himself for the
examination, which is conducted by the very professors whose lectures
he has heard and in whose laboratories he has worked. This examina-
tion varies somewhat in different universities, but in no case is it either
very long or extensive ; indeed, it is not considered as very important.
For we are all aware what an uncertain means of determining a man's
knowledge and capabilities an examination is, and how much its issue
depends upon accidental circumstances. Part of this uncertainty is
removed by the fact that the professor and the pupil know each other,
are acquainted with one another's modes of expression and scientific
views. The main purpose of the examination is to induce the student
to widen his knowledge to a greater extent than is covered by the
subject of his dissertation ; but, indeed, it happens very seldom
that a student whose work is considered sufficient does not pass the
examination.
" We have no great fear that this system may induce a professor to
treat his own pupils in too lenient a way, and so lower the standard
of the Doctor's degree. There was a time when such abuses used
to occur, but there very soon arose such public indignation that the
abuses ceased to occur. Even at the present day similar instances
occasionally occur, but, as before remarked, the position of a professor
depends in such a degree upon the value of the dissertations worked
out under his supervision, that such deviations from the right way
correct themselves in- the course of time. The most effective instru-
ment for that purpose is the publication of all dissertations and the
consequent public control over them ; for this reason publication is,
I believe, compulsorily prescribed in all German universities.
" When the student has finished his course he is still entirely free to
choose between a scientific and a technical career. This is a very
important point in our educational system ; it is made possible by
the circumstance that the occupation of a technical chemist in works
is very often almost as scientific in its character as in a university
laboratory. This is connected with a remarkable feature in the develop-
ment of technical chemistry in Germany the very point upon which
the important position of chemical manufacture in this country depends.
The organisation of the power of invention in manufactures and on
BDTVATTONAL METHODS.
large scale is, as far as 1 know, unique in the world's historv, ami it
is the very marrow of our splendid development. Each large works
has the greater part of its scientific staff and there are often more
than 100 doctores phil. in a single manufactory occupied, not in the
management of the manufacture, but in making inventions. The
research laboratory in such a work is only different from one in a
university by its being more splendidly and sumptuously fitted than
the latter. I have heard from the business managers of such works
that they have not unfrequentty men who have worked for four years
without practical success ; but if they know them to possess ability
they keep them notwithstanding, and in most cases with ultimate
success sufficient to pay the expenses of the former resultiess years.
" It seems to me a point of the greatest importance that the conviction
of the practical usefulness of a theoretical or purely scientific training
is fully understood in Germany by the leaders of great manufactories.
When, some years ago, I had occasion to preside at a meeting, consisting
of about two-thirds practical men and one-third teachers, I was much
surprised to observe the unhesitating belief of the former in the useful-
ness of entirely theoretical investigations. And I know a case where,
quite recently, an " extraordinary " professor of a university has been
offered a very large salary to induce him to enter a works, only for
the purpose of undertaking researches regarding the practical use
of some scientific methods which he had been working at with con-
siderable success. No special instructions are given to him, for it is
taken for granted that he himself will find the most promising methods ;
only, in order to increase his interest in the business, part of his remunera-
tion has been made proportional to the commercial success of his
future inventions. From this clear understanding of the commercial
import am -e <>l -'-ience by the directors of industrial establishments
there scicm-c it -elf gains another advantage. A scientific man can
be almost sure, it' lie wants in his investi^ itions the help of such technical
means as only great works can afford, that he will get such assistance
at once on application t<> any works, and the scientific papers of German
chemists very often contain acknowledgments, with due thanks, of
considerable help they have thus obtained.
"Besides these advantages for the development of scientific and
technical chemist iv in (lerniany there exists another very important
factor- -practical assistance from the Government. Universities are
in (rermany affairs ol the State, not of the Kmpire, and in no other
point has the division of the Fatherland into many smaller countries
proved itself to such a degree a boon and a blessing. The essential
OF THE
UNIVERSITY
\ OF
74 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
character of the German universities, the freedom conferred by the
independence of the numerous universities, is never lost. There have
been hard times occasionally for the universities of one country or
another ; but some universities were always to be found where even
in times of hard oppression liberty of teaching and learning remained
complete and unaffected, and the spirit of pure unalloyed scientific
research was preserved and encouraged. So this palladium of intel-
lectual freedom has never been lost ; and it regained the former
influence as soon as the casual oppression ceased. In our days, there
is among all the separate State Governments in Germany a clear
conviction of the importance of practical support being given to pure
scientific research. To take one instance, in order to facilitate teaching
and research in electro-chemistry (a recently developed branch of
science) a suggestion by some leading practical scientific men to the
members of the Government was sufficient. Upon such a suggestion
a considerable sum of money was spent first by the Prussian Govern-
ment for the endowment of electro-chemical chairs and laboratories
in the three " polytechnic " colleges of that country. A short time
afterwards it was resolved to erect at one of the universities (Gottingen)
an institute for physical chemistry, and especially electro-chemistry,
in the shape of a building which has just been completed. At the same
time, other German countries have begun to grant to their universities
and technical colleges considerable sums of money for similar purposes ;
e.g., the Saxon Landtag alone has unanimously voted half a million
marks (=25,000) for the erection of a splendid laboratory for physical
chemistry at Leipzig.
"You will excuse my boasting about our German management of
this most important question of scientific education. It is no blind
admiration without criticism, for I know by practical experience the
management in other countries, and I can compare them. And it is
only for the sake of science itself that I write these lines. If they should
help the spread of the conviction of the incomparable practical usefulness
of every support given to pure science, together with the recognition
of the fact that the latter can only grow in an atmosphere of liberty
and confidence, I should regard it as tending towards the progress
of science itself, and destined to exercise such an influence upon scientific
progress as may be compared with the discovery of the most remarkable
scientific fact."]
A SHORT HISTORY OF SCIENTIFIC
INSTRUCTION.*
(1898.)
The two addresses by my colleagues Profs. Judd and
Roberts-Austen have drawn attention to the general
history of our College and the details of one part of our
organisation. I propose to deal with another part, the
consideration of which is of very great importance at the
present time, for we are in one of those educational move-
ments which spring up from time to time and mould the
progress of civilisation. The question of a teaching
University in the largest city in the world, Secondary
Education and so-called Technical Education are now
occupying men's minds.
At the beginning it is imperative that I should call
your attention to the fact that the stern necessities of the
human race have been the origin of all branches of science
and learning ; that all so-called educational movements
have been based upon the actual requirements of the
time. There has never been an educational movement
for learning's sake ; but of course there have always been
studies and students apart from any of those general
movements to which I am calling attention; still we have
An address delivered at the Royal College of Science on October 6, 1898.
70 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
to come down to the times of Louis Quatorze before the
study of the useless, the meme inutile, was recognised
as a matter of national concern.
It is perhaps the more necessary to insist upon stern
necessity as being the origin of learning, because it is so
difficult for us now to put ourselves in the place of those
early representatives of our race that had to face the pro-
blems of life among conditionings of which they were pro-
foundly ignorant ; when night meant death ; when there
was no certainty that the sun would rise on the morrow ;
when the growth of a plant from seed was unrecognised ;
when a yearly return of seasons might as well be a miracle
as a proof of a settled order of phenomena ; when, finally,
neither cause nor effect had been traced in the operations
of nature.
It is doubtless in consequence of this difficulty that
some of the early races have been credited by some authors
with a special love of abstract science, of science for its
own sake ; so that this, and not stern necessity, was the
motive of their inquiries. Thus we have been told that
the Chaldseans differed from the other early races in having
a predilection for astronomy, another determining factor
being that the vast plains in that country provided them
with a perfect horizon.
The first historic glimpses of the study of astronomy
we find among the peoples occupying the Nile Valley and
Chaldsea, say 6000 B.C.
But this study had to do with the fixing of the length of
the year, and the determination of those times in it in which
the various agricultural operations had to be performed.
These were related strictly to the rise of the Nile in one
country and of the Euphrates in the other. All human
HISTORY OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUCTION.
77
jtivity was in fact tied up with the movements of the
in, moon and stars. These, then, became the gods of
those early peoples, and the astronomers, the seers, were
ie first priests ; revered by the people because, as inter -
>reters of the celestial powers, they were the custodians of
the knowledge which was the most necessary for the
purposes of life.
Eudemus of Rhodes, one of the principal pupils of
Aristotle, in his History of Geometry, attributes the origin
of geometry to the Egyptians, " who were obliged to in-
vent it in order to restore the landmarks which had been
destroyed by the inundation of the Nile," and observes
" that it is by no means strange that the invention of the
sciences should have originated in practical needs. "' The
new geometry was brought from Egypt to Greece by
Thales three hundred years before Aristotle was born.
When to astronomy and geometry we add the elements
of medicine and surgery, which it is known were familiar
to the ancient Egyptians, it will be conceded that we are,
in those early times, face to face with the cultivation of
the most useful branches of science.
Now, although the evidence is increasing day by day
that Greek science was Egyptian in its origin, there is
no doubt that its cultivation in Greece was more extended,
and that it was largely developed there. One of the most
useful and prolific writers on philosophy and science who
has ever lived, Aristotle, was born in the fourth century
B.C. From him, it may be said, dates a general conception
of science based on observation as differing from experiment.
If you wish to get an idea of the science of those times, read
his writings on Physics and on the Classification of Animals.
* " Greek CJeoint-try from Thales to Euclid," p. 2. (Allman.)
78 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
All sought in Aristotle the basis of knowledge, but they
only read his philosophy ; Dante calls him " the Master
of those who know."*
Why was Aristotle so careful to treat science as well as
philosophy, with which his master, Plato, had dealt almost
exclusively ?
The answer to this question is of great interest to our
present subject. The late Lord Playfairf in a pregnant
passage, suggests the reason, and the later history of
Europe shows, I think, that he is right.
" We find that just as early nations became rich and prosperous,
so did philosophy arise among them, and it declined with the decadence
of material prosperity. In those splendid days of Greece, when Plato,
Aristotle and Zeno were the representatives of great schools of thought
which still exercise their influence on mankind, Greece was a great
manufacturing and mercantile community ; Corinth was the seat of the
manufacture of hardware ; Athens that of jewellery, shipbuilding and
pottery. The rich men of Greece and all its free citizens were actively
engaged in trade and commerce. The learned class were the sons of
those citizens, and were in possession of their accumulated experience
derived through industry and foreign relations. Thales was an oil
merchant ; Aristotle inherited wealth from his father, who was a
physician, but, spending it, is believed to have supported himself as a
druggist till Philip appointed him tutor to Alexander. Plato's wealth
was largely derived from commerce, and his master, Socrates, is said
to have been a sculptor. Zeno, too, was a travelling merchant. Archi
medes is perhaps an exception, for he is said to have been closely related
to a prince ; but if so, he is the only princely discoverer of science on
record."
In ancient Greece we see the flood of the first great in-
tellectual tide. Alas ! it never touched the shores of
Western Europe, but it undoubtedly reached to Rome,
and there must have been very much more observational
science taught in the Roman studia than we generally
* " Inferno," c. iv. 130 et seq.
t " Subjects of Social Welfare," p. 206,
HISTORY OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUCTION. 79
imagine, otherwise how explain the vast public works,
and their civilising influence carried over sea and
land from Africa to Scotland ? In some directions
eir applications of science are as yet unsur-
passed.
With the fall of the Roman Empire both science and
philosophy disappeared for a while. The first wave had
come and gone ; its last feebler ripples seem to have been
represented at this time by the gradual change of the
Roman secular studia wherever they existed into clerical
schools, the more important of which were in time attached
to the chief cathedrals and monasteries ; and it is not
difficult to understand why the secular (or scientific) in-
struction was gradually replaced by one more fitted for the
training of priests.
It is not to be wondered at that the ceaseless strife in
the centre of Europe had driven what little learning there
was to the western and southern extremities where the
turmoil was less I refer to Britain and South Italy-
while the exiled Nestorians carried Hellenic science and
philosophy out of Europe altogether to Mesopotamia
and Arabia.
The next wave, it was but a small one, had its origin in
our own country. In the eighth century England was at
its greatest height, relatively, in educational matters ;
chiefly owing to the labours of two men. Beda, generally
called the Venerable Bede, the most eminent writer of his
age, was born near Monkwearmouth in 673, and passed
his life in the monastery there. He not only wrote the
history of our island and nation, but treatises on the
nature of things, astronomy, chronology, arithmetic,
medicine, philosophy, grammar, rhetoric, poetry, music ;
80 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
basing his work on that of Pliny. He died in 735, in
which year his great follower was born in Yorkshire. I
refer to Alcuin. He was educated at the Cathedral
School at York under Archbishop Egbert, and having
imbibed everything he could learn from the writings of
Bede and others, was soon recognised as one of the
greatest scholars of the time. On returning from Eome,
whither he had been sent by Eaubald to receive the
pallium, he met Karl the Great, King of the Franks and
Lombards, who eventually induced him to take up his
residence at his Court, to become his instructor in the
sciences. Karl (or Charlemagne) then was the greatest
figure in the world, and although as King of the Franks
and Lombards, and subsequently Emperor of the Holy
Roman Empire, his Court was generally at Aachen, he was
constantly travelling throughout his dominions. He was
induced, in consequence of Alcuin's influence, not only
to have a school always about him on his journeys, but
to establish, or foster, such schools wherever he went.
Hence it has been affirmed that " France is indebted to
Alcuin for all the polite learning it boasted of in that
and the following ages." The Universities of Paris,
Tours, Fulden, Soissons and others were not actually
founded in his day, but the monastic and cathedral schools
out of which they eventually sprung were strengthened,
and indeed a considerable scheme of education for priests
was established ; that is, an education free from all
sciences and in which philosophy alone was considered.
Karl the Great died in 814, and after his death the
eastward travelling wave, thus started by Bede and
Alcuin, slightly but very gradually increased in height.
Two centuries later, however, the conditions were changed.
ITOKY OF SrFFATFFK 1 TN'STIM '( TT<>\. 81
We find ourselves in presence of interference phenomena,
for then there was a meeting with another wave travel-
ling westwards, and this meeting was the origin of
the European Universities. The wave now manifested
Ira veil ing westerly, spread outward from Arab centres
first and finally from Constantinople, when its vast stores
of Greek lore were opened by the conquest of the city.
The first wavelet justified Eudemus' generalisation that
" the invention of the Sciences originated in practical
needs," and that knowledge for its own sake was not
the determining factor. The year had been determined,
stone circles erected almost everywhere, and fires
signalled from them, giving notice of the longest and
shortest days, so that agriculture was provided for,
even away from churches and the Festivals of the Church.
The original user of geometry was not required away from
the valleys of the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, and, there-
fore, it is now Medicine and Surgery that come to the
front for the alleviation of human ills. In the eleventh
century we find Salerno, soon to be famed throughout
Kurope as the great Medical School, forming itself into
the first University. And Medicine did not exhaust all
the science taught, for Adelard listened there to a lecture
on " the nature of things," the cause of magnetic
attraction being one of the " things " in question.
This teaching ,it Salerno preceded by many years the
study of the law at |-><>lo--na and of theology at Piiris.
The full flood came from the disturbance of the Arab
wave (-(Mitre by the Crusades, about the beginning of the
eleventh century. After the Pope had declared the " Holy
War," William of Mahneslmry tells us :
" Tlu ni>st distant islands and sav;ijj< countries \vrrc inspired with
82 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
this ardent passion. The Welshman left his hunting, the Scotchman his
fellowship with vermin, the Dane his drinking party, the Norwegian his
raw fish."
Report has it that in 1096 no less than 6,000,000 were in
motion along many roads to Palestine. This, no doubt, is
an exaggeration, but it reflects the excitement of the time,
and prepare us for what happened when the Crusaders
returned ; as Green puts it* :
" The western nations, including our own, ' were quickened with a
new life and throbbing with a new energy.' .... A new fervour of
study sprang up in the West from its contact with the more cultured
East. Travellers like Adelard, of Bath, brought back the first rudi-
ments of physical and mathematical science from the schools of Cordova
or Bagdad. . . . The long mental inactivity of feudal Europe broke
up like ice before a summer's sun. Wandering teachers, such as
Lanfranc or Anselm, crossed sea and land to spread the new power
of knowledge. The same spirit of restlessness, of inquiry, of impatience
with the older traditions of mankind, either local or intellectual, that
drove half Christendom to the tomb of its Lord, crowded the roads with
thousands of young scholars hurrying to the chosen seats where teachers
were gathered together."
Studium generate was the term first applied to a large
educational centre where there was a guild of masters,
and whither students flocked from all parts. At the
beginning of the thirteenth century the three principal
studia were Paris, Bologna and Salerno, where theology
and arts, law and medicine, and medicine almost by it-
self, were taught respectively ; these eventually developed
into the first universities, f
English scholars gathered in thousands at Paris round
the chairs of William of Champeaux and Abelard, where
they took their place as one of the " nations " of which
the great Middle Age University of Paris was composed.
* " History of the English People," I. 198.
t See " Histoire de 1'Universite de Paris." Cr^vier, H9l,passi?n.
HISTORY OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUCTION. 83
We have only to do with the Arts faculty of this Uni-
versity. We find that the subject-matter of the liberal
education of the Middle Ages, there dealt with, varied
very little from that taught in the schools of ancient
Rome.
The so-called " artiens," students of the Arts faculty
which was the glory of the University and the one most
numerously attended, studied the seven arts of the tri-
vium and quadrivium that is, grammar, rhetoric, dia-
lectic; and arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy. *
This at first looks well for scientific study, but the
mathematics taught had much to do with magic ; arith-
metic dealt with epacts, golden numbers and the like.
There was no algebra and no mechanics. Astronomy
dealt with the system of the seven heavens.
Science, indeed, was the last thing to be considered in
the theological and legal studia, and it would appear
that it was kept alive more in the medical schools than
in the Arts faculties. Aristotle's writings on physics,
biology and astronomy were not known till about 1230,
and then in the shape of Arab-Latin translations. Still
it must not be forgotten that Dante learned some of
his astronomy, at all events, at Paris.
Oxford was an offshoot of Paris, and therefore a theo-
logical studium, in all probability founded about 1167,f
and Cambridge came later.
Not till the Reformation (sixteenth century) do we see
any sign of a new educational wave, and then we find
the two which have had the greatest influence upon the
Knunurat'd in the following Middle Age Latin verse :
Lingua, tmpns ratio, nuiiit-m-, tonn<. an-ulu.s, astra."
I ruvrr-ilit's oi Kin-opt- in tin- Middle Ages,'' Ka-lidalK vol. ii. p. :;i I.
F -J
84 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
history of the world one of them depending upon the
Reformation itself, the other depending upon the birth
of experimental inquiry.
Before the Reformation the Universities were priestly
institutions and derived their authority from the Popes.
The Universities were for the few ; the education of the
people, except in the various crafts, was unprovided for.
The idea of a general education in secular subjects at
the expense of the State or of communities is coeval with
the Reformation. In Germany, even before the time of
Luther, it was undreamt of, or rather, perhaps, one should
say, the question was decided in the negative. In his
day, however, his zeal first made itself heard in favour
of education, as many are now making themselves heard
in favour of a better education ; and in 1524 he addressed a
letter to the Councils of all the towns in Germany, begging
them " to vote money not merely for roads, dikes, guns
and the like, but for schoolmasters, so that the poor
children might be taught ; on the ground that if it be
the duty of a State to compel the able-bodied to carry
arms, it is a fortiori its duty to compel its subjects to send
their children to school."*
Here we have the germ of Germany's position at the
present day, not only in scientific instruction but in every-
thing which that instruction brings with it.
With the Reformation this idea spread to France. In
1560 we find the States General of Orleans suggesting to
Francis II. a
" Levee (Tune contribution sur les benefices eccles'.astiques pour
raisonablement stipendier des pedagogues et gens lettres, en toutes
villes et villages, pour 1'instruction de la pauvre jeunesse du plat pays,
* This is a ({notation from my Coventry address, see p. 28.
ISTonV (>K S( IKXTIKIC I.VSTKR TH >N. 85
soi(Mit (rims lis IMTOS et mrivs. a JHMIII- d'anu'mlr. a rnvovrr l-s dils
rnfants a lY-rulc, et a rr fain 1 sni-iif ontraints par li--; S'-^uicurs et les
juges ordinaires."
tFwo years after this suggestion, however, the religious
rs broke out ; the material interests of the clerical party
had predominated, the new spirit was crushed under the
iron heel of priestcraft, and the French, in consequence,
had to wait for three centuries and a revolution before
they could get comparatively free.
In the Universities, or at all events alongside them, we
find next the introduction, not so much of science
with its experimental side as we now know it, as of the
scientific spirit.
The history of the College de France, founded in 1531
by Francis the First, is of extreme interest. In the fifteenth
century the studies were chiefly literary, and except in
the case of a few minds they were confined merely to
scholastic subtleties, taught (I have it on the authority of
the Statistique de 1'Enseignement Superieur) in barbarous
Latin. This was the result of the teaching of the faculties ;
but even then, outside the faculties, which were immutable,
a small number of distinguished men still occupied them-
in a less rigid way in investigation ; the studies, how-
were chiefly literary. Among those men may be
mentioned Danes, Postel, Dole, Guillaume Bude, Lefevre
d'Ktaples and others, who edited with notes and commen-
taries Greek and Latin authors whom the University scarcely
knew by name. Hence the renaissance of the sixteenth cen-
tury, which gave birth to the College de France, the function
of which, at the commencement, was to teach those things
which were not in the ordinary curriculum of the faculties of
th- univT>ity. It was called \ lu> C allege des Deux Langues,
86 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
the languages being Hebrew and Greek. It then became
the College des Trois Langues, when the king, notwithstand-
ing the opposition of the University, created in 1534 a chair
of Latin. There was another objection made by the
University to the new creation ; from the commence-
ment the courses were free ; and this feeling was not de-
creased by the fact that around the celebrated masters
of the Trois Langues a crowd of students was soon
congregated.
The idea in the mind of Francis the First in creating
this Royal College may be gathered from the following
Edict, dated in 1545 :
" Franyois, etc., savoir faisons a tons presents et a venir que Nous,
considerant que le sgavoir des langues, qui est un des dons du Saint-
Esprit, fait ouverture et donne le moyen de plus entiere connaissance
et plus parfaite intelligence de toutes bonnes, honnetes, saintes et
salutaires sciences. . . . Avons fait faire pleinement entendre a ceux
qui, y voudraient vacquer, les trois langues principales, Hebraiique,
Grecque, et Latine, et les Limes esguels les bonnes sciences sont le
mieux et le plus profondement traitees. A l,aquelle fin, et en suivant le
decret du concile de Vienne, nous avons pi^a ordonne et establi en
ndtre bonne ville de Paris, un bonne nombre de personnages de syavoir
excellent, qui lisent et enseignent publiquement et ordinairement
les dites langues et sciences, maintenant norissant autaut ou plus
qu'elles ne firent de bien longtemps. . . . auxquels nos lecteurs avons
donne honne"tes gages et salaires, et iceux fait pourvoir de plusieurs
beaux benefices pour les entretenir et donner occasion de mieux et plus
continuellement entendre au fait de leur charge. . . . etc."
The Statistique, which I am following in this account,
thus sums up the founder's intention :
" Le College Royal avait pour mission de propager les nouvelles
naissances, les nouvelles decouvertes. II n'enseignait pas la science
faite, il la faisait."
It was on account of this, more than on account of
anything else, that it found its greatest enemy in the
si 'IK NT [FTC
University. The founding of this new College, and the
great excitement its success occasioned in Paris, were,
there can be little doubt, among the factors which
induced Gresham to found his College in London in
1574. These two institutions and the street trading which
preceded the buildings played a great part in their
time. Gresham College, it is true, was subsequently
strangled, but not before its influence had been such
as to permit the Royal Society to rise phoenix-like from
its ashes, for it is on record that the first step in the
forming of this Society was taken after a lecture on
astronomy by Sir Christopher Wren at the College. All
connected with the two institutions felt the change
of thought in the century which saw the birth of Bacon.
Galileo, Gilbert, Hervey, Tycho Brahe, Descartes and
many others that might be named ; and of these, it is well
to remark, Gilbert,* Hervey and Galileo were educated in
medical schools abroad.
Bacon was not only the first to lay down regulce
phtiosophandi, but he insisted upon the far-reaching
results of research, not forgetting to point out that
" lucifera experimenta, non fructifera queer enda,"^ as a
caution to the investigator, though he had no doubt as
to the revolution about to be brought about by the ultimate
application of the results of physical inquiry.
As early as 1560 the Academia Secretorum Naturae
was founded at Naples, to be followed by the Lincei in
1609, the Royal Society in 1645, the Cimento in 1657
and the Paris Academy in 1666.
From that time the world may be said to have belonged
* "William (lilbert, of ColchoUr. on the Magnet. MiUcla-ji !' x.
Nov. Or-..'' 1. 70. Fowler's Edition, j>. 8
88 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
to science, now no longer based merely on observation
but on experiment. But, alas ! how slowly has it per-
colated into our Universities.
The first organised endeavour to teach science in
schools was naturally made in Germany (Prussia), where,
in 1747 (nearly a century and a half ago), Realschulen
were first started ; they were taken over by the Govern-
ment in 1832 and completely reorganised in 1859, this
step being demanded by the growth of industry and the
spread of the modern spirit. Eleven hours a week were
given to natural science in these schools forty years ago.
Teaching the Teachers.
Until the year 1762 the Jesuits had the education of
France almost entirely in their hands, and when, there-
fore, their expulsion was decreed in that year, it was
quite a necessary step to create an institution to teach
the future teachers of France. Here, then, we had the
Ecole Normale in theory ; but it was a long time before
this theory was carried into practice, and very probably
it would never have been, had not Eolland d'Erceville
made it his duty, for more than twenty years, by nume-
rous publications, amongst which is especially to be
mentioned his " Plan d' Education," printed in 1783,
to point out, not merely the utility, but the absolute
necessity for some institution of the kind. As generally
happens in such cases, this exertion was not lost, for, in
1794, it was decreed that an Ecole Normale should be
opened at Paris :
" Ou seront appeles de toutes les parties de la Republi^ue, des citoyens
deja instruits dans les sciences utiles, pour apprendre, sous les professeurs
les plus habiles dans tous les genres, 1'art d'enseigner."
OK SCIENTIFIC INSTRUCTION, w
To follow these courses in the art of teaching, one poten-
tial schoolmaster was to he sent to Paris hy every dis-
trict containing 20,000 inhabitants. 1,400 or 1,500 young
men, therefore, arrived in Paris, and in 1795 the courses
of the school were opened first of all in the amphitheatre
of the Museum of Natural History. The professors were
chosen from among the most celebrated men of France,
the sciences being represented by Lagrange, Laplace,
Haiiry, Monge, Daubenton and Berthollet.
While there was this enormous progress abroad,
represented especially by the teaching of science in
Germany and the teaching of the teachers in France, things
slumbered and slept in Britain. We had our coal and
our iron, and no one troubled about an improved educa-
tion least of all the universities, which had become,
according to Matthew Arnold (who was not likely
to overstate matters), mere hauts lycees, and " had
lost the very idea of a real university," and
since our political leaders generally came from the uni-
versities little more was to be expected from them.
Many who have attempted to deal with the history
of education have failed to give sufficient prominence to
the tremendous difference there must necessarily have
been in scientific requirements before and after the intro-
duction of steam power.
It is to the discredit of our country that we, who gave
the perfected strain engine, the iron ship and the loco-
motive to the world, should have been the last to feel the
next wave of intellectual pr<
All we did at the beginning <l the century was to found
mechanics' institute. They knew better in Prussia,
Schools and Unb the Continent," p. 291.
90 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
" a bleeding and lacerated mass,"* after Jena (1806), King
Frederic William III. and his councillors, disciples of
Kant, founded the University of Berlin, " to supply the
loss of territory by intellectual effort." In spite of the
universal poverty, money was given for the improve-
ment or extension of the Universities of Koenigsberg
and Breslau, and that of Bonn was founded in
1818. As a result of this policy, carried on persistently
and continuously by successive ministers, aided by wise
councillors, many of them the products of this policy,
such a state of things was brought about that not many
years ago M. Ferdinand Lot, one of the most distinguished
educationists of France, accorded to Germany " a supre-
macy in Science comparable to the supremacy of Eng-
land at sea."
But this position has not been obtained merely by
founding new universities. To Germany we owe the
perfecting of the methods of teaching Science.
I have shown that it was in Germany that we find
the first organised science teaching in schools. About
the year 1825 that country made another tremendous
stride. Liebig demonstrated that science teaching, to
be of value, whether in the school or the university, must
consist to a greater or less extent in practical work, and
the more the better ; that book work was next to useless.
Liebig, when appointed to Giessen, smarting still
under the difficulties he had had in learning chemistry
without proper appliances, induced the Darmstadt
Government to build a chemical laboratory in which
the students could receive a thorough practical training.
* " University Education in England, France and Germany," Sir Rowland
Bleunerhassett, p. 25.
5TORY OF SCIENTIFIC INS
ICTION.
It will have been leathered from this reference to Liebig's
system of teaching chemistry, that still another branch of
applied science had been created, which has since had a
stupendous effect upon industry ; and while Liebig was
working at Giessen, another important industry was
being created in England. I refer to the electric tele-
graph and all its developments, foreshadowed by Galileo
in his reference to the " sympathy of magnetic needles."
Not only then in chemistry but in all branches of
science which can be applied to the wants of man, the
teaching must be practical that is, the student must
experiment and observe for himself and he must himself
seek new truths.
It was at last recognised that a student could no more
learn Science effectively by seeing some one else perform
an experiment than he could learn to draw effectively by
seeing some one else make a sketch. Hence in the
German Universities the Doctor's degree is based upon
a research.
Liebig's was the fans et origo of all our laboratories
mechanical, metallurgical, chemical, physical, geological,
astronomical and biological.
I must come back from this excursion to call your
attention to the year 1845, in which one of the germs
of our College first made its appearance.
What was tin- rendition ol' Unhand in 1845? Her
umvcrsitirs had dr^riirrat ed into Ixiut* fi/d'cs. With
iv^inl to the University teaching, I may state that even
a.s late as the late fifties a senior wrangler I had the
story from himself came to London from Cambridge
expressly to walk about the streets to study crystals,
prisms, and the like in the opticians' windows. Of
92 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
laboratories in the universities there were none ; of
science teaching in the schools there was none ; there
was no organisation for training science teachers.
If an artisan wished to improve his knowledge he had
only the moribund Mechanics' Institutes to fall back
upon.
The nation which then was renowned for its utilisation
of waste material products allowed its mental products to
remain undeveloped.
There was no minister of instruction, no councillors
with a knowledge of the national scientific needs, no
organised secondary or primary instruction. We lacked
then everything that Germany had equipped herself with
in the matter of scientific industries.
Did this matter ? Was it more than a mere abstract
question of a want of perfection ?
It mattered very much ! From all quarters came the
cry that the national industries were being undermined
in consequence of the more complete application of
scientific methods to those of other countries.
The chemical industries were the first to feel this,
because England was then the seat of most of the
large chemical works.*
Very few chemists were employed in these chemical
works. There were in some cases so-called chemists at
about bricklayers' wages, not much of an inducement to
study chemistry, even if there had been practical labora-
tories where it could have been properly learnt. Hence
when efficient men were wanted they were got from
abroad, i.e., from Germany, or the richer English had to
go abroad themselves.
iii, Nature, \xxii. 334.
TTTSTOR
[N8TRUOTION.
Knrtunatrly for us, at this time, we had in England, in
very high place, a German fully educated by all that
could be learned at one of the best equipped modern
Gorman Universities, where he had studied both science and
tin 1 fine arts. I refer to the Prince Consort. From that
yoar to his death he was the fountain of our English
educational renaissance, drawing to himself men like
Playfair, Clark and De la Beche ; knowing what we
lacked, he threw himself into the breach. This College is
one of the many things the nation owes to him. His
service to his adopted country, and the value of the
institutions he helped to inaugurate, are by no means
even yet fully recognised, because those from whom
national recognition, full and ample, should have come,
were, and to a great extent still are, the products of the
old system of middle age scholasticism which his clear
vision recognised was incapable by itself of coping with the
conditions of modern civilised communities.
It was in the year 1845 that the influence of the Prince
Consort began to be felt. Those who know most of the
conditions of Science and Art then and now, know best
how beneficial that influence was in both directions ; my
present purpose, however, has only reference to Science.
The College of Chemistry was founded in 1845, first
afl a private institution : tlio School of Minos was ostab-
lisbrd by the Government in 1S.~>1.
In tin 1 next yoar. in the speech from the Throne at tlio
opening of Parliament, I lor Majesty spoko as follows:
u The advancement of the Fine Arts and of practical Science will bo
readily rero^nUi-d by you M worthy the ;it tent ion of a gnat and
enlightened nation. I have directed that a comprehensive scheme
sh.ill be laid before yu having in view the promotion of the-;e objects,
towards which T invite yonr aid and co-operation."
94 EDUCATION ANT) NATIONAL PROGRESS.
Strange words these from the lips of an English
sovereign !
The Government of this country was made at last to
recognise the great factors of a peaceful nation's prosperity,
and to reverse a policy which has been as disastrous to
us as if they had insisted upon our naval needs being
supplied by local effort as they were in Queen Elizabeth's
time.
England has practically lost a century ; one need not
be a prophet to foresee that in another century's time our
education and our scientific establishments will be as
strongly organised by the British Government as the
navy itself.
As a part of the comprehensive scheme referred to by
Her Majesty, the Department of Science and Art was
organised in 1853, and in the amalgamation of the College
of Chemistry and the School of Mines we have the germ
of our present institution.
But this was not the only science school founded by
the Government. The Royal School of Naval Archi-
tecture and Marine Engineering was established by the
Department at the request of the Lords Commissioners
of the Admiralty, " with a view of providing especially
for the education of shipbuilding officers for Her Majesty's
Service, and promoting the general study of the Science
of Ship Building and Naval Engineering." It was not
limited to persons in the Queen's Service, and was
opened on November 1, 1864. The present Royal
College of Science was built for it and the College of
Chemistry. In 1873 the School was transferred to the
Royal Naval College, Greenwich, and this accident
enabled the teaching from Jermyn Street to be transferred
HISTORY OF sriFA T TTFir INSTRUCTION. <.">
and proper practical instruction to be given at South
Kensington. The Lords of the Admiralty expressed
their entire satisfaction with the manner in which the
instruction had been carried on at South Kensington ; and
well they might, for in a. memorandum submitted to the
Lord President in 1887, the President ;ind Council of the
Institute of Naval Architects state :
"When the department dealt with the highest class of education in
Naval Architecture by assisting in founding and by carrying on th
School of Naval Architecture at South Kensington, the success which
attended their efforts was phenomenal, the great majority of the
rising men in the profession having been educated at that Institution."
Here I again point out, both with regard to the School
of Mines, the School of Naval Architecture and the
later Normal School, that it was stern need that was in
question, as in Egypt in old times.
Of the early history of the College I need say nothing
after the addresses of my colleagues, Profs. Judd and
Roberts-Austen, but I am anxious to refer to some parts
of its present organisation and their effect on our national
educational growth in some directions.
It was after 1870 that our institution gradually began
to take its place as a Normal School that is, that the
teaching of teachers formed an important part of its
organisation, because in that year the newly-established
Department, having found that the great national want
thon was teachers of Science, began to take steps to
secure them. Examinations had been inaugurated in 1859,
but they were for outsiders, conferring certificates and
;i money reward on the most competent teachers tested
in this way. These examinations were really controlled
hy our School, for Tyndall, Hul'maim, Kamsay, Huxley,
90 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
and Warington Smyth, the first professors, were also the
first examiners.
Very interesting is it to look back at that first year's
work, the first cast of the new educational net. After
what I have, said about the condition of Chemistry and
the establishment of the College of Chemistry in 1845,
you will not be surprised to hear that Dr. Hofmann was
the most favoured he had forty-four students.
Prof. Huxley found one student to tackle his ques-
tions, and he failed.
Profs. Ramsay and Warington Smyth had three each,
but the two threes only made five ; for both lists were
headed by the name of
Judd, John W.,
Wesleyan Training College,
Westminster.
Our present Dean was caught in the first haul.
These examinations were continued till 1866, and
upwards of 600 teachers obtained certificates, some of
them in several subjects.
Having secured the teachers, the next thing the Depart-
ment did was to utilise them. This was done in 1859 by
the establishment of the Science Classes throughout the
country which are, I think, the only part of our educa-
tional system which even the Germans envy us. The
teaching might go on in schools, attics or cellars ; there
was neither age-limit nor distinction of sex or creed.
Let me insist upon the fact that from the outset practi-
cal work was encouraged by payments for apparatus,
and that latterly the examinations themselves, in some
of the subjects, have been practical.
The number of students under instruction in Science
Classe
HISTORY OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUCTION.
lasses organized by the Department in the first year
these classes were held was 442 ; the number in 1897
was 202,496. The number of candidates examined in
the first year in which local examinations were held was
650, who worked 1,000 papers ; in 1897 the number was
106,185, who worked 159,724 papers, chemistry alone
sending in 28,891 papers, mathematics 24,764 and
physiography 16,879.
The total number of individual students under instruc-
tion in Science Classes under the Department from 1859
to 1897 inclusive has been, approximately, 2,000,000.
Of these about 900,000 came forward for examination, the
total number of papers worked by them being 3,195,170.
Now why have I brought these statistics before you ?
Because from 1861 onwards the chief rewards of the
successful students have been scholarships and exhibi-
tions held in this College ; a system adopted in the hope
that in this way the numbers of perfectly trained Science
Teachers might be increased, so that the Science Classes
throughout the country might go on from strength
to strength.
The Royal Exhibitions date from 1863, the National
Scholars from 1884. The Free Studentships were added
later.
The strict connection between the Science Classes
throughout the country and our College will be gathered
from the following statement, which refers to the present
time :
Twenty-one Royal Exhibitions seven open each year
four to the Royal College of Science, London, and
three to the Royal College of Science, Dublin.
Sixty-six National Scholarships twenty-two open each
98 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
year tenable, at the option of the holder, at either the
Royal College of Science, London, or the Royal College
of Science, Dublin.
Eighteen Free Studentships six open each year to
the Royal College of Science, London.
A Royal Exhibition entitles the holder to free
admission to lectures and laboratories, and to instruction
during the course for the Associateship about three
years in the Royal College of Science, London, or the
Royal College of Science, Dublin, with maintenance and
travelling allowances.
A National Scholarship entitles the holder to free
admission to lectures and laboratories and to instruction
during the course of the Associateship about three years
at either the Royal College of Science, London, or
the Royal College of Science, Dublin, at the option of the
holder with maintenance and travelling allowances.
A Free Studentship entitles the holder to free
admission to the lectures and laboratories and to
instruction during the course for the Associateship about
three years in the Royal College of Science, London,
but not to any maintenance or travelling allowance.
Besides the above students who have been successful
in the examinations of the Science Classes, a limited
number (usually about sixty) of teachers and of students in
science classes who intend to become science teachers,
are admitted free for a term or session to the courses of
instruction. They may be called upon to pass an entrance
examination. Of these, there are two categories those
who come to learn for a short time and those who remain
longer to teach ; some of the latter may be associates.
Besides all these, those holding Whitworth Scholarships
HISTORY OF SCIENTIFIC IN-
and Exhibitions the award of which is decided by the
Science examinations can, and some do, spend the
years covered by them at the College.
In this way, then, is the Ecole Normale side of our
institution built up.
The number of Government students in the College
in 1872 was twenty-five, in 1886 it was 113 and in 1897
it was 186.
The total number of students who passed through the
College from 1882-83 to 1896 inclusive was 4,145. Of
these 1,966 were Government students. The number who
obtained the Associateship of the Royal School of
Mines from 1851 to 1881 was 198, of whom thirty-nine
were Government students, and of the Royal College of
Science and Royal School of Mines from 1882 to 1897 the
number was 525, of whom 323 were Government students.
Of this total of 362 Government students ninty-four were
Science teachers in training.
With regard to the Whit worth Scholarships, which,
like the Exhibitions, depend upon success at the yearly
examinations throughout the country, I may state that
six have held their scholarships at the College for at
least a part of the scholarship period, and three others
were already associates.
So much for the prizemen we have with us. I next
come to the teachers in training who come to us. The
number of teachers in training who have passed through
the College from 187^ to 1897 inclusive is about 600 ; on
an average they attended about two years each. The
number in the session 1872-73, when they were first
ail mitt od, was sixteen, the number in 1885-86 was fifty
and in 1890-97 sixty. Those have not as a rule taught
100 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS,
Science Classes previously, but before admission they give
an undertaking that they intend to teach. In the earlier
years some did not carry out this undertaking, doubtless
because of the small demand for teachers of Science at that
time. But we have changed all that. With but very few
exceptions, all the teachers so trained now at once begin
teaching, and not necessarily in classes under the
Department. It is worthy of note, too, that many Royal
Exhibitioners and National Scholars, although under no
obligation to do so, also take up Science teaching. It is
probable that of all the Government students now who
pass out of the College each year not less than three-
fourths become teachers. The total number of teachers
of Science engaged in classes under the Department alone
at the present time is about 6,000.
I have not yet exhausted what our College does for
the national efforts in aiding the teaching of Science.
When you, gentlemen, leave us about the end of June
for your well-earned holidays, a new task falls upon your
professors in the shape of summer courses to teachers
of Science Classes brought up by the Department from
all parts of the four kingdoms to profit by the wealth of
apparatus in the College and Museum, and the practical
work which it alone renders possible.
The number of Science teachers who have thus attended
the summer courses reaches 6,200, but as many of these
have attended more than one course the number of
separate persons is not so large.
Research.
From time to time balances arise in the Scholarship
fund owing to some of the National Scholarships or Royal
HISTORY OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUCTION. 101
Exhibitions being vacated before the full time for which
they are tenable has expired. Scholarships are formed
from these balances and awarded among those students
who, having completed the full course of training for
the Associateship, desire to study for another year at
the College. It is understood that the fourth year is to be
employed in research in the subject of the Associateship.
The gaining of one of the Remanet Scholarships, there
are not more than two on the average annually,
furnishes really the only means by which deserving
students are enabled to pursue research in the College ;
as, although a professor has the power to nominate a
student to a free place in his laboratory, very few of the
most deserving students are able to avail themselves of
the privilege owing to want of means. .
The Department very rarely sends students up as
teachers in training for research work, but only those who
intend making teaching their profession are eligible for
these studentships.
I trust that at some future day, when we get our new
buildings it is impossible to do more than we do till we
get them more facilities for research may be provided,
and even an extension of time allowed for it, if necessary.
I see no reason why some of the 1851 Exhibition Scholar-
ships should not be awarded to students of this College,
but to be eligible they must have published a research.
Research should naturally form part of the work of
the teachers in training who are not brought up here
merely to effect an economy in the teaching staff.
Such, then, in brief, are some of our Normal School
attributes. I think any one who knows the facts must
acknowledge that the organisation has justified itself not
102 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
only by what it has done, but also by the outside activities
it has set in motion. It is true that with regard to the
system of examining school candidates by means of
papers sent down from London, the Department was
anticipated by the College of Preceptors in 1853, and by
Oxford and Cambridge in 1858 ; but the action of 1861,
when Science Classes were opened to everybody, was copied
by Oxford and Cambridge in 1869. The Department's
teachers got to work in 1860, but the so-called " Univer-
sity Extension Movement " dates only from 1873, and
only quite recently have summer courses been started
at Oxford and Cambridge.
The chemical and physical laboratories, small though
they were in the Department's schools, were in operation
long before any practical work in these subjects was
done either at Oxford or Cambridge. When the College
laboratories began about 1853, they existed practically
alone. From one point of view we should rejoice that
they are now third rate. I think it would be wrong of
me not to call your attention to the tenacity, the fore-
sight, the skill, the unswerving patience, exhibited
by those upon whom has fallen the duty of sailing the
good ship " Scientific Instruction," launched, as I have
stated, out upon a sea which was certain from the
history I have brought before you to be full of opposing
currents.
I have had a statement prepared showing what the
most distinguished of our old students and of those who
have succeeded in the Department's examinations are
now doing. The statement shows that those who have
been responsible for our share in the progress of scientific
instruction have no cause to be ashamed.
HISTORY OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUCTION. 103
Conclusion.
I have referred previously to the questions of Secondary
Education and of a true London University, soon, let us
hope, to be realised.
Our College will be the first institution to gain from
a proper system of Secondary Education, for the reason
that scientific studies gain enormously by the results of
literary culture, without which we can neither learn so
thoroughly nor teach so effectively as one could wish.
To keep a proper mind-balance, engaged as we are
here continuously in scientific thought, literature is
essential, as essential as bodily exercise, and if I may be
permitted to give you a little advice, I should say organise
your athletics as students of the College, and organise
your literature as individuals. I do not think you will
gain so much by studying scientific books when away
from here as you will by reading English and foreign
classics, including a large number of works of imagination ;
and study French and German also in your holidays by
taking short trips abroad.
With regard to the University. If it be properly organ-
ised, in the light of the latest German experience, with
complete Science and Technical Faculties of the highest
order, it should certainly insist upon annexing the School
of Mines portion of our institution ; the past history of
the school is so creditable that the new University for its
own sake should insist upon such a course. It would be
absurd, in the case of a nation which depends so much
on mining and metallurgy, if these subjects were not
taught in the chief national University, as the University
of London must become.
But the London University, like the Paris University,
104 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
if the little history of Science teaching I have given
you is of any value, must leave our Normal College alone,
at all events till we have more than trebled our present
supply of science teachers.
But while it would be madness to abolish such an
institution as our Normal School, and undesirable if not
impossible to graft i on the new University, our school,
like its elder sister in Paris, should be enabled to gain
by each increase in the teaching power of the University.
The students on the scientific side of the Paris School,
in spite of the fact that their studies and researches are
looked after by fourteen professors entitled Maitres de
Conferences, attend certain of the courses at the Sorbonne
and the College de France, and this is one of the reasons
why many of the men and researches which have
enriched French science, hail from the Ecole Normale.
One word more. As I have pointed out, the French
Ecole Normale was the result of a revolution ; I may
now add that France since Sedan has been doing, and
in a tremendous fashion, what, as I have told you, Prussia
did after Jena. Let us not wait for disastrous defeats,
either on the field of battle or of industry, to develop to
the utmost our scientific establishments and so take our
proper and complete place among the nations.
SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION AND THE PROGRESS
OF NATIONS.
(1899.)
There can be no doubt that in the future history of
the world, for thousands of years, the century that is
so rapidly passing away will be recorded as one of the
most memorable, if not the most memorable, to which
attention can be drawn. This high position will be
awarded to it on the ground that it is the one which has
most profoundly affected the life-conditions of the human
race.
The salient point about the 19th century is that it is
the scientific century. Theology, art, learning in the
ordinary sense, are at the end of it pretty much as they
were at the beginning ; they have undergone no great
development ; but the applications of science have
entirely changed, and for the better, the conditions of
human life.
How comes it then that after living so many thousands
of years upon the planet, for thanks to scientific explora-
tions in Egypt and Babylonia we can now claim at least
10,000 years of more or less civilised communities, man
has thus so suddenly come into so great a heritage ?
It must be conceded, when we come to look back upon
our past history, that it is really very remarkable that
106 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
this question should arise. A volume would be required
to answer it fully; let me content myself, as my space
is limited, by referring to two or three instances in which
Science, that is, the study of Nature and Nature's ways
by either experiment or observation, was checked in a
way which to us now seems almost inconceivable.
The evidence is now complete that both in Babylonia
and Egypt in remote ages, the observation of the heavenly
bodies was carried on with great assiduity, not from a
love of pure science, but because a knowledge of the
movements of the Sun, Moon and Stars was essential
for the affairs of daily life and especially of agriculture.
The young science soon found itself smothered and all
but killed in a rank overgrowth of priestcraft and super-
stition, astrology being one of the forms of the latter ;
the difficulties with which the earliest students of nature
found themselves surrounded can therefore be well
imagined. Still the cult grew slowly and in the 4th
century B.C. we find in Greece, into which land Egyptian
science had penetrated in spite of all obstacles, one of
the greatest masters of science who has ever lived, when
his time is taken into account ; from whom the world
first gathered a general conception of science, as based
on observation, the time of experiments was scarcely
yet. I refer to Aristotle. It would have been better
for the world if he had only been a student of science,
but, splendidly universal in his thirst for and acquisition
of knowledge, he wrote on philosophy as well. Science
was a newer departure, and Greek Science enshrined in
Aristotle's many treatises undoubtedly reached Rome.
There must have been much more science taught in
the Roman schools than we generally imagine, otherwise
THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE.
107
how is it possible to account for the writings of
Pliny, and vast public works, carried over sea
and land from beyond Bab-el-Mandeb to our own
shores.
However this may have been, the time of science was
not yet, for schools and everything else went under in
the fall of the Empire.
Was her chance taken at the Revival of Learning ?
When, about the 12th century, one after the other, the
Universities of Salerno, Bologna, Paris, Oxford and Cam-
bridge were founded ? Alas no ! At all these teach-
ing centres, which were controlled by the Church, the
masters and students alike sought in the writings of
Aristotle the basis of knowledge, but his scientific
treatises were unread, only his philosophy was studied;
the whole world of natural phenomena was passed over by
the many, although it was the secret study of the few.
It was never dreamed by the educational authorities
that the study of such phenomena could by any possi-
bility either expand the mind or materially aid the pro-
gress of mankind, while it was possible it might under-
mine faith. Hence it was practically left on one side.
We have to wait till the times of Galileo, Bacon, Gil-
bert, Hervey and others for a real beginning to be made,
and in the direction which chiefly concerns us ; and we
all know that what happened to Galileo at the hands
of the priestly authorities of his time was not calculated
to foster the study of science. Bacon insisted upon
the far-reaching results of research, having no doubt
as to the revolution to be ultimately brought about
by the application of the results of physical inquiry.
But it is less to Bacon and Descartes than to Luther
108 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
that we owe the final emancipation and development of
scientific study ; the development, however, was very slow.
Science was not taught on an organised plan in schools
till 1747 when a beginning was made in Germany. The
perfecting of our modern methods of teaching science
both in schools and colleges we also owe to Germany.
The work began here in earnest in 1845, and for this
we have to thank chiefly the influence of the Prince
Consort.
Here then may end our short history of the slow growth
of the scientific spirit, and of some of the causes of it.
There have always been students of science and their
number has constantly increased, but their influence on
the mass of mankind has been inappreciable chiefly in
consequence of the opposition of the clerical authorities
and of the educational systems in vogue.
Of one thing we may be now assured, the history of
Egypt, Greece and Rome will not be repeated. Science
has come to stay.
What has the study of science already done ? It has
enlarged the domain of human thought and helped us
to understand the wonderful universe in which our lot
is cast. It has shown us at the same time how all the
multitudinous forces of Nature may be harnessed for
our use and how some of her most hidden ways may be
utilised for the greater happiness and convenience of
mankind. Some of the results she accomplished long
before the present century dawned, but the century is as
remarkable for the development of the old as it is for
the creation of the new, and this chiefly by the reflex
action of the new on the old in providing mechanical and
instrumental aids of undreamt-of power.
RESS OF SCIENCE.
Let us first deal with our splendid century in the light
of the new knowledge and new helps more especially
associated with it.
The gift of science to the opening years of the century
was the steam engine then coming into common use.
Watt's patent expired in 1800. When one reads how
it was that Watt achieved one of the most tremendous
revolutions recorded in history, one cannot help feeling
that his position as " mathematical instrument maker
to the University " (at Glasgow) had everything to do
with it ; he lived with his friend Black in an atmosphere
of research. The steam-engine, so closely are all scientific
applications bound together, underlies all our modern
progress, for the reason that hand labour, thanks to it, has
been replaced by greater powers. Tubal-Cain and the
" blacksmiths " who descended the Nile Valley before
the pyramids were built, could mould iron, but they could
never have made machinery, as we now understand it ;
and telescopes and telephone wires, and even the instru-
ments used nowadays in wireless telegraphy are made
by machinery.
One of the first applications during this century of
the new source of power was to apply it to locomotion.
This was done by Watt himself and Symmington on
the Forth and Clyde Canal, in 1802.
Our present enormous battleships and mail steamers,
and also our destroyers going at thirty-five miles an hour,
are doubly the result of Watt's work. It is the steam
engine which builds them and drives them when built*
It may even be that Mr. Parsons, at the end of the century,
will prove to us that Watt's method of applying steam to
marine locomotion can be improved upon for some uses.
110 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
Land locomotion by means of steam followed in 1829,
the Rocket and the Stockton and Darlington Railway
inaugurating the long series of engines and railways
which now make rapid and safe transit possible almost
over the whole surface of the civilised world, both speed
and economy being secured by James' invention of the
tubular boiler.
Certainly in the steam engine and in its application
to locomotion by sea and land we have the causes of
two most momentous changes in our civilisation ; they
have been brought about by the application of the
study of the phenomena of heat, first in softening
metals, next in vapourising liquids.
Electricity comes next with its wonderful record of
electric telegraph, electric light, electric traction, tele-
phones and wireless telegraphy, and all since 1836 ! Of
the applications of electricity, after what has happened,
he would be a bold man who would venture to predict
where they will stop, or that no equally striking develop-
ments are yet in store for us. If they come it will be
because the future will produce its Faradays or its Kelvins.
The world in general has been less struck with the
results of the study of magnetism per se than with that
of electricity. Still its victories include the study of the
magnetic forces at work over all the water surface of the
globe, and the power of using a compass in an iron ship,
without which navigation would be a very different thing
from what it is. Nor must we forget the demonstration
of some still mysterious bond between the earth and the
centre of our system with which the periodicity of sun
spots, magnetic storms and auroral and some meteoro-
logical conditions of our earth are bound up. Here
T11K I'WXJKKSS OF SCIKNVK 111
certainly we are face to face with one of the sciences of
the future.
The saving of the lives of our sailors by storm warnings
and the study of the laws of storms is one of the applica-
tions of the science of meteorology which the century
has brought us, a result undreamt of by him who first
" weighed the air." Nor do the benefits of science to our
seafaring and sea-going populations end here. Ocean
currents as well as air currents have been investigated
and charted by hydrographers, who have added to these
benefits maps showing depths, so that now the contours
of the bottoms of seas and oceans are nearly as well
known as those of the land surfaces.
" The anatomy of the earth," as geology has been
termed, is also practically a product of the present century,
though it may be said that for its beginning we have to
look to Arabian writers of the tenth century. The later
work has not only enabled us to become familiar with the
surface conditions of the earth in past ages, but to con-
struct tables showing the various forms of animal and
vegetable life which one after the other have peopled our
planet.
More than this, man himself has been proved to have
been present on the scene contemporaneously with many
now extinct animals, at a time long antecedent to that
favoured by Archbishop Usher. This work has been
extended by the modern science of Archaeology which
has demonstrated the existence of settled communities
and by no means rude civilisations thousands of years
. and it is now evident that in " the noblest study of
mankind " the geologist and archaeologist must work
together to dive still further into man's early history.
112 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
But there has also been another very practical appli-
cation of geological study. Geography long ago gave
us maps of land surfaces, geology has now based upon
them geological maps of priceless value to all interested
in the products of the mine. In no direction, perhaps,
is the influence of the modern scientific wave better demon-
strated than in the fact that in the newest countries such
maps are the first care of those in authority, while some
of the oldest are still without them : this is little to be
wondered at, for, read in the light of science, they give
us certain knowledge of the riches lying beneath, and
the modern steam-engine does the rest. Hence the
enormous development of the Mining Industry in all
lands in recent years.
For another enormous industrial advance brought about
by quiet research we have to look to Chemistry. The
rise, and I am sorry to say the fall in this country, of this
industry has been one of the most remarkable things
of the century. On this I shall have to say a word
presently.
I must not dwell longer on the more modern sciences.
Let me turn next to those which have been long culti-
vated.
It was formerly thought that the study of organic
nature could have no possible application ; that the
study of animals and plants led to classification chiefly,
if not exclusively.
In this region of thought we find another revolution
as striking, if not more striking, than those already re-
ferred to. The genius of Darwin has evolved from this
study " the origin of species ; " that is the real cause of
the introduction of new forms, and has brought us in
THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE.
presence of the work of evolution in moulding the animal
and vegetable kingdoms through the vast geological
periods, and, what is more important from the practical
point of view, in our own times.
Medicine and astronomy are certainly the most ancient
>f the sciences, and yet, strange to tell, the ad-
ices here have equalled any other to which I have
rferred.
I am an old man now, but still I distinctly remember
LOW large was the number of faces marked with the small-
pox, encountered in an hour's walk in my youth. Such
sights, and the deaths and ravages caused by this fell
disease, have practically been abolished by vaccination
introduced by Jenner in the first half of the century.
Pasteur and Lister have made for themselves immortal
names since then, and at the end of the century we find
ourselves on the track of the causes of most diseases.
The germs from which they spring are known, and pre-
ventive medicine is now a well -understood science. Hydro-
phobia, diphtheria, consumption and other dire human
maladies shew signs of capitulation, while Listerism
enables the surgeon to succeed in operations which were
formerly never attempted.
Much of this tremendous alleviation of human pain,
ami the attendant increase in the span of life have
depended upon the improvement in the microscope
brought about by the study of optics. Strangely enough,
the last important progress to which I shall refer comes
to a large extent from the same source.
The earliest victories of astronomy were achieved
without anv instrument. The horizon formed the only
point of available reference ; then came instruments with-
H
114 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
oub the telescope and clock ; next these were added. The
steam-engine and improvements in the manufacture of glass
followed, and permitted the construction of enormous
telescopes ; finally we have the optical studies, to which
I have referred, carried on in strict alliance with chemistry.
Celestial objects which the human eye will never see are
now studied in a hundred ways by means of photography,
and the heavens have been expanded for us a thousand-
fold ; and chemistry has not stopped here ; the substances
of which the most distant worlds are composed are now
well within our ken.
With hundreds of thousands of firm facts at our dis-
posal, we can now watch the gradual formations of worlds,
and study both cause and effect. Hence a new idea of
cosmical evolution, and hence also an idea of another
evolution which deals with the gradual formation of
the chemical substances of which our own earth as well
as the distant worlds are built up.
All the world knows of the many applications of the
old Astronomy, some of which have been so improved
in recent years that a ship at 16 knots speed can determine
her position to a mile in any part of the trackless ocean.
The applications of the new astronomy are yet to seek,
but they will come.
The preceding hasty sketch of the progress of science
and the attendant progress in industry during the century
will conclusively show that Bacon has been proved to
be more than right in his estimate of the material benefits
which must follow from a study of pure science ; and
it is not too much to say that to-day there is no branch
of pure science which has not its application, and no appli-
cation of science which has not helped to enlarge the
THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE.
115
boundaries of the branch, of pure science on which it is
based.
I cannot refrain from quoting what Huxley wrote
in this particular connection some years ago :
" If science has rendered the colossal development of modern industry
possible, beyond a doubt industry has done no less for modern physics
and chemistry and for a great deal of modern biology. And as captains
of industry have, at last, begun to be aware that the condition of success
in that warfare, under the forms of peace, which is known as industrial
competition, lies in the discipline of the troops and the use of arms
of precision, just as much as it does in the warfare which is called
war, their demand for that discipline, which is technical education, is
reacting upon science in a manner which will, assuredly, stimulate
its future growth to an incalculable extent. It has become obvious
that the interests of science and of industry are identical ; that science
cannot make a step forward without, sooner or later, opening up new
channels for industry ; and, on the other hand, that every advance
of industry facilitates those experimental investigations, upon which
t growth of science depends."*
STears ago a distinguished man of science said that
Applications " were the " froth and scum " of science.
Were he alive he would not say so now, for the reason that
experience has shown that the most useful applications
are often suggested by those whose life is chiefly spent in
studying scientific principles ; indeed, one of the morals
of our recent progress is that the study of the purest science
is the best way of increasing those so-called " applica-
tions " which have proved to be so useful to mankind,
,ier or later. There are many instances of researches
il rally useless at the time they were made which have
ultimately resulted in the most important applications.
Faraday's " trifling " with wires and magnets and Newton's
; i ni nation of sunlight through a prism are cases in
point.
Method and K--ull-. Ks.siy-. T. II. Huxley, page .V>.
116 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
It is from such considerations as these that the im-
portance of study in all branches of science without
regard to immediate applications may be gathered. It
is often forgotten that the unstudied is the mine from
which, one by one, with study, all applications have been
won ; the purest science, then, is the one so far least
drawn upon. It is, therefore, as history shows us, the one
which will prove most fruitful in the future.
What is to be learnt from all this ?
An industrial battle between the foremost nations
is always going on, and in the struggle for existence in
each market the fittest nation will survive. Each nation
depends for its life upon its industry. Industry depends
upon science. The progress of science depends upon the
number of men of science at work in each country. This
number chiefly depends upon the education afforded in each
country. The basis of all scientific work is the power of
thinking, observing and experimenting correctly the
best use of mind and eyes and hands. This, then, is the
natural basis of the earliest education.
The next moral is this. If a nation wishes to go under
in the struggle, the very best plan is to waste the time
of the young at the primary school by educating on
some other system than that indicated let us say teach-
ing a trade. Next waste the time of the older students,
supposing science is taught to them at all, by a so-called
" technical instruction " concerning applications without
any practical work at, or research connected with, any
one branch of pure science. Next turn men thus pre-
pared into works and factories where they will be able
only to slavishly follow their predecessors by using rule
of thumb processes. Such a course as this will effectively
THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE.
117
prevent any development of the industry concerned ; no
new processes will be forthcoming, no new methods based
on new discovery, and no new products.
tlf a nation wishes to succeed in the struggle she must
e to it that the earliest of the school years shall be spent
in providing such a fully co-ordinated education as I
have indicated ; and the after years, and many of them,
utilised in building a knowledge of pure science on this
foundation by means of research. Men thus educated,
when they find their way into industry, are not forced
to be content with the old methods of work if they can see
their way to improve them. They do improve them and
discover new ones. Next they discover new applications
altogether and eventually in this way open up new
markets with new commodities.
These are no fancy pictures. We had these two methods
in operation fifty years ago. The first in England, the
second in Germany, and the result of their working has
been that England has lost her chemical industries, as I
hinted before. But not in relation to these industries
alone has the value of the second method been established
by the logic of facts. The final moral I wish to
impress upon is that if England suffers Germany or any
other nation to surpass her in the arts of peace that
is in the application, of science to the needs of mankind
the fall of the Empire must come sooner or later.
Now that science is the great factor in the history of
the world, what is done during peace and not during
will decide the fate of nations.
EDUCATION IN THE NEW CENTURY.
(1901.)
Science is cosmopolitan. Electricity abolishes time and
envelops both hemispheres with a new idea as soon as it
has emerged from the brain of the Thinker. Mechanics,
by its space-annihilating power, has reduced the
surface of the planet to such an extent that the human
race now possesses the advantage of dwelling, as it were,
on a tiny satellite. Both these agencies, then, combine
to facilitate a rapid exchange of new ideas and com-
modities, as well as of those who are interested in them
in whatever capacity.
These considerations indicate some of the most momen-
tous changes which have occurred in the world's history
since the last century dawned.
How have they been brought about ? M. Maurice
Levy, in one of those allocutions always so admirable
in thought and style pronounced by the President of
the French Academy of Sciences at the annual public
meeting held each December, has answered this question
for us :
" Let us never forget that if applied mechanics has arrived to-day
at such marvellous results, if we can now calculate beforehand the parts
of the most complex machines, it is because long ago the shepherds
of Chaldea and Judea observed the stars ; because Hipparchus combined
their observations with his own and handed them down to us ; because
EDUCATION IN THE NEW CENTURY. 119
T\< ho Brahe made better ones; because two thousand years ago
a great geometer, Appolonius of Perga, wrote a treatise on conic sections,
regarded for many centuries as useless ; because the genius of Kepler,
utilising this admirable work and the observations of Tycho Brahe,
gave us those sublime laws which themselves have been considered
useless by the utilitarians ; and, finally, because Newton discovered
the law of universal gravitation."
From this discovery of Newton, M. Levy points out,
first came the study of celestial mechanics, from which
was derived later general mechanics, from which again,
later still, industrial mechanics has taken its origin, and
is now applied every day. He adds :
" It is well to impress the fact that Industrial Mechanics has come
down from heaven, upon the utilitarians ; upon those who appreciate
science only so far as it can be immediately profitable to them ; who
are always complaining that too much is taught at school ; and who
regard as superfluous everything they cannot find in a formulary,
manual or aid to memory."
All our progress, then, if we accept the view to which
M. Maurice Levy has given expression, has come from
the study of what was useless at the time it was studied.
There is no doubt that this view is correct, and that
further developments, probably as momentous as those
to which we have already referred, will in the future
come to us from the same source.
To study the useless, therefore, is as important as to
apply the useful, from a cosmopolitan point of view ; and
all wise governments and institutions should use their
in><t strenuous efforts to aid the first endeavour; the
'iid can very well take care of itself.
There can be no question that the progress of science
and of the applications of science to industry will go on
in a uromotrical ratio, and that eventually every country
will bandit by this advance ; but if we quit the cosmo-
120 EDUCATION AtfD NATIONAL PROGRESS.
politan point of view and endeavour to form an idea of
the results of this advance on any country in particular,
another set of considerations comes in.
Our Empire, as it exists at present, and our great
national wealth, are the results of the sea -training and
prowess of her sons and of the stores of natural wealth
in the shape of coal and iron which the first appliers of
mechanics found to their hand. The output and first
user of coal and iron depended upon the applications of
mechanics, and the first user of all these combined enabled
us to flood the markets of the world, and for years Britain
was the Tubal Cain among the nations. Not only had
we a monopoly of export, but so high an authority as Sir
Andrew Noble acknowledges that fifty years ago British
machinery was immeasurably superior to any other. But
even this statement does not exhaust all our then advan-
tages. Because we were the great producers we became
the great carriers of the world, when Germany did not
exist as a united nation, France was mainly agricultural,
and the United States were engaged in developing their
enormous and almost unpopulated territories.
But what has happened since ? As we have said,
science is cosmopolitan, and the levelling effect of
this has been that the material advantages we pos-
sessed in the first instance have disappeared. Other
countries, chiefly those we have named, have now their
coal and iron and applications of science as well as
ourselves.
First among these applications at the beginning of the
last century came steam locomotion, and from the work
done on the Forth and Clyde Canal have sprung all the
navies and railways of the world.
UNIVERSITY
EDUCATION IN THE NEW CENTURY.
121
For traction purposes steam is now giving way to
electricity ; but how different is the role that Britain is
playing at the beginning of the new century compared
with that she filled at the beginning of the old one. We
import instead of exporting. The chief London electric
railway is American, American coal is producing gas to
light the streets of the Metropolis, American cars are
now found on our English trains which on some lines
are drawn by American locomotives. British applica-
tions to facilitate locomotion, therefore, have ceased to be
paramount, and at the same time we no longer occupy
the proud position of being the only nation of shop-
keepers.
Were this all, it would be abundantly clear that our
old supremacy must cease, and from no fault of our own,
as it is but a direct consequence of the general progress
of science, which includes the facilitating of inter-com-
munications. But, unfortunately, it is not all.
At a time when our ancient universities occupied no
higher level than that, according to Matthew Arnold, of
Secondary Schools, and when there was little attempt
at educating the large majority of the population, Prussia,
which, with the rest of the German States, had been the first
to insist upon the importance of the education of the people,
had occupied herself, crushed though she was after Jena,
with the founding of universities and with the highest
education ; while live seats of learning in great numbers
\\rre being founded in the United States. The beginning
of the new century, then, finds us in a position which
every day differs more and more from that occupied by
us in the old one, for not only uiv our natural resources
122 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
relatively reduced in value, but our intellectual resources
are not sufficiently superior to those of other nations to
enable us to retain our old position by force of brains.
As an early instance of the result of this state of things
we may refer to Mr. Perkin's account, in 1885,* of the
migration of the coal-tar industry to Germany. In
later years ample proof has been adduced that in many
directions the present British intellectual equipment is
not only not superior, but actually inferior to that of other
countries, and none too soon the matter is engaging
attention in the daily press. Recently The Times, Daily
Mail and Pall Mall Gazette have called special attention
to the reasons which may be assigned for this new and
alarming state of things ; a writer in the Fortnightly
has gone so far as to ask, " Will England last the Cen-
tury ? " while Sir Henry Roscoe has expressed his
opinions in a letter to The Times as follows :
" There can be no manner of doubt that a crisis in our national well-
being has already been reached. The news brought to us from all
quarters proves that our industrial and commercial prosperity is
being rapidly undermined. The cry that we are being outbid on all
sides by Germany and America is no new one, but it becomes louder
and louder every day, and now it is admitted by all those best qualified
to judge that, unless some drastic steps are taken to strengthen our
educational position in the direction long ago taken up by our competi-
tors, we stand to lose, not merely our industrial supremacy, but the
bulk of our foreign trade. . . . The only policy at this time is to
strain every nerve to place the country educationally on a level with its
neighbours. No effort, no expenditure, is too great to secure this
result, and unless our leaders, both in statecraft and in industry, are
quickly aroused to the critical condition of our national affairs in this
respect, and determine at once to set our house in order, our children
and grandchildren may see England sink to the level of a third-rate
Power ; for upon education, the basis of industry and commerce,
the greatness of our country depends."
* Nature, volxxxii.. p. 343.
EDUCATION IN THE NEW CENTUKY.
123
We must confess that when we come to consider the
panaceas suggested by these writers we find much more
vagueness than might be expected, and some sugges-
tions which are entirely beside the mark.
Thus we are told that now our Colonies are being more
closely united to us, we may rest and be thankful ; that
American industry depends for its success upon the
extreme youth of those who are at the head of affairs.
Education is referred to as if there were no differences
in the methods employed, and finally a newly-developed
sloth is suggested as the origin of the apparent decadence
of the most athletic nation in the world.
The question arises, Is there no scientific method open
to us to get at the real origin of the causes which have
produced the present anxiety ?
M. Maurice Levy, in his allocation, did England the
honour to point out how large a share Newton had in
founding the industries on which our commercial great-
ness in the last century was based. It seems to us to
be our duty, at the beginning of the new century, to
suggest that at this critical time it would be criminal
to neglect the labours of another great Englishman
Darwin which may be appealed to to help us to see
what has gone wrong and to forecast what the future has
in store for us if we apply the suggested remedies or if
we neglect them. In this we possess an advantage over
our forerunners; Darwin has shown the working of
an inexorable law which applies exactly to the condi-
tions under which we find ourselves.
The enormous and unprecedented progress in science
during the last century has brought about a perfectly
new state of things, in which the " struggle for existence "
124 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
which Darwin studied in relation to organic forms is now
seen, for the first time, to apply to organised communities,
not when at war with each other, but when engaged in
peaceful commercial strife. It is a struggle in which the
fittest to survive is no longer indicated by his valour and
muscle and powers of endurance, but by those qualities
in which the most successful differs most from the rest.
We must accept the conclusion that, with material out-
fits now much more equally distributed for this struggle
for existence, if Britain be at a disadvantage in relation
to any other nation with regard to these qualities, she
must go under if such a condition of things be allowed
to go on. If this appeal to a natural law leads to such
a dire conclusion, it is the duty of every Briton, from
the highest to the lowest, to see to it that some efficient
remedy be applied without delay.
It follows from what has already been stated that we
need not look for these national differences among natural
products for the reason that, day by day, such differences
are being levelled by the present ease and rapidity of
intercommunication.
We do not think that the differences will be found in
any very great degree in our primary and technical in-
struction as it is going on to-day.
If we regard our primary, secondary and higher edu-
cation, it must be acknowledged that great improve-
ments have been carried out during the last quarter of
a century. The establishment of new universities,
adapted to the present conditions of civilisation, in
several great centres, and the promise of more, has clearly
shown that, in the opinion of our most important mer-
cantile communities, strong measures are necessary, and
IN THE NEW CENTURY.
that they are prepared to make great pecuniary sacri-
fices to carry them out. Still, the facts show that what
has already been done is not sufficient, and that we must
do more in these directions ; but the present difference
in these respects is not entirely sufficient to account for
the present condition of things.
Continuing our process of exclusion, we finally arrive
at the possibility that the present superiority of our com-
petitors depends as much upon Liebig's introduction of
practical scientific work and research into the general
higher education as did our former supremacy upon
Watt's introduction of the steam engine. Voltaire said,
" On etudie les livres en attendant qu'on etudie les
hommes." The proper study of science gives us a third
term, the study of things and laws in action ; a study in
which the eye and hand and brain must work together to
produce the scientific spirit, or properly organised common
sense.
The scientific spirit existed among our European
competitors much more generally than it did with us
long before Liebig, and it was utilised over a far wider
field of knowledge ; but from Liebig's time it has existed
among them as the dominant factor in Industry and
Commerce, and the closer union between Science and
Industry in other countries is, we believe, the true origin
of the present difference between them and our own.
Here, we tried to start chemical industries practically
without chemists, as Mr. Perkin has told us. In
<H-rmany they are now carried on by scores, in one case
more than a hundred, of the best trained chemists the
country can produce, in research laboratories attached to
all the great works. At this moment German artificial
123 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
indigo threatens to replace the natural product in all the
markets of the world as a result of these scientific in-
dustrial methods. So soon as science was acknow-
ledged to be the most important commercial factor, the
Eeichsanstalt was established by the Government at a
cost of 200,000^., and a yearly expenditure of 15,000. to
weld science and industry more closely together. An
American professor thus, summarises the results :
" The results have already justified, in a remarkable manner, all
the expenditure of labour and money. The renown in exact scientific
measurements formerly possessed by France and England has now
largely been transferred to Germany. Formerly scientific workers
in the United States looked to England for exact standards, especially
in the department of electricity ; now they go to Germany."
And again :
" Germany is rapidly moving toward industrial supremacy in Europe.
One of the most potent factors in this notable advance is the perfected
alliance between science and commerce existing in Germany. Science
has come to be regarded there as a commercial factor. If England is
losing her supremacy in manufactures and in commerce, as many
claim, it is because of English conservatism, and the failure to utilise
to the fullest extent the lessons taught by science."
Britain, of course, is the country in which such an
institution ought to have been established more than
half a century ago. We are now compelled to imitate it ;
but the new institution which, before long, may be insti-
tuted is on such a microscopic scale that its utility in the
present struggle is more than doubtful.
The next conclusion the appeal to the law provides
us with is that the improved scientific instruction of
those engaged in industry is not the only line along which
our defences must be strengthened. The scientific spirit
must be applied as generally in England as elsewhere.
The increasing complexity of industrial and nationa,]
EDUCATION IN THE NEW CENTURY.
127
life requires a closer adjustment of means to ends, and this
can only be attained by those who have had education
on a scientific basis, and have therefore acquired the
scientific habit. In this way only can we lift the whole
standard of our national life to a higher plane, and weld
the various national activities together.
We must have a profound change of front on the part
of the Ministry and the personnel of the Government
departments, only very few of whom have had any
scientific education, and who at present regard all scientific
questions with apathy, on the ground, perhaps, that in
their opinion the Nation has no direct concern with them.
This feeling may be strengthened by the fact that at
present, while the laws of the realm are well looked after
by the most highly paid servants of the State, the laws of
Nature are left without anybody to form a court of appeal
in difficult questions. It is true that to fill this gap our
men of science are always ready, when called upon, to
spend time and energy in affording, gratis, to the Govern-
ment advice on any questions which may be submitted
to them ; but because this advice costs nothing its value
is, perhaps, estimated by what it costs.
Our rulers must recognise that, in virtue of the law
to which reference has been made, it will not do to con-
fine their energies and the national expenditure, so largely
as they do now, to matters relating only to the Navy and
Army, the functions of which are to protect our world-
wide Empire at present well worth conquering, our in-
dustries and our argosies on every sea products, all of
them, of our old scientific and therefore commercial
supremacy.
Tal obvious corollaries from the law in question
128 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
indicate very clearly the proper course to pursue in our
own case to retain our position, in the case of our com-
petitors to improve their own in relation to us, and there-
fore at our expense. There are many signs that our com-
petitors, at all events, have faced this problem and are
working on true scientific lines ; of this the heavy sub-
sidy of the German mercantile marine may be given
as one instance out of many, and here, indeed, we are
brought face to face with the consideration that the
scientific outlook should really be as important to those
in charge of the nation's future well-being as that con-
cerned with international politics.
If the other nations, by their scientific activity, increase
their commerce and therefore their commercial fleets,
their national fleets must be increased also. Our present
policy with regard to our fleet is well established, so that
we are committed to its continuous and well-defined
increase, while it seems to be the duty of no Govern-
ment Department to look after the scientific advances
which are the only bases of the commerce which is to pro-
vide for our constantly increasing expenditure.
These considerations are only typical of others which
are well worth considering at the present juncture by
men possessing the scientific spirit. What is the best
way of utilising the combined forces of the Empire, in
times of peace, under the present conditions ? It is clear
that no merely sentimental bonds will be sufficient. We
may add that peaceful conflicts between industrial peoples
are not alone in question.
With regard to preparation for war, history has already
taught us much. Of two competitors, if one be fully
armed both for offence and defence, and the other is
EDUCATION IN THE NEW CENTURY.
129
not, there is no doubt as to what will happen. That
nation will be the best off which utilises the greatest
number of its citizens both for war and peace. A large
standing army in times of peace is a clear indication
that the scientific spirit has not been sufficiently applied
to the problem, and it is to be hoped that now the future
of the nation is being discussed, the attempts to put our
house in order will be made on scientific lines.
THE ORGANISATION OF KNOWLEDGE.
(1902.)
!
The London Gazette announces that a petition for incor-
poration has been presented to His Majesty on behalf
of a new body, " The British Academy for the Promo-
tion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies. v
An explanation has been given that the object of this
institution is to do for the various departments of " lite-
rary science " what the Royal Society has achieved for
" natural science." The causes which have led up to
this proposal may be stated as follows. At a meeting
of the representatives of the chief European and Ameri-
can Academies held at Wiesbaden in October 1899, an
International Association of the principal Scientific and
Literary Academies of the world was decided upon.
Most of the Academies represented are divided into two
sections, a section of natural science and a section of his-
torico-philosophical science. And on this ground the
scheme provided for the division of the new association
into two sections, " scientific " and " literary," the word
" literary " being used only as a short title to embrace
the sciences of language, history, philosophy, archaeo-
logy and other allied subjects the study of which is
based on scientific methods. At the conference the
representatives of the Royal Society, not feeling them-
selves competent to represent the United Kingdom in
THE ORGANISATION OF KNOWLEDGE. 131
e philosophico-historical section, were unofficially
requested to take such steps as might be possible to fill
is gap in the future.
The next steps taken may be gathered from the Report
I the Royal Society Council presented to the Society
on November 30, 1901.
The secretaries, apparently in fulfilment of their under-
taking at Wiesbaden, wrote on the subject to the presi-
dent of the Society of Antiquaries, Viscount Dillon, on
November 21, 1899. A meeting was called at which,
among others, several fellows of the Royal Society and
of the Society of Antiquaries were present. The con-
clusion arrived at was that the idea of an academy to
represent the philosophico-historical subjects formed by
the simple federation of existing societies was not one
which appeared to meet the views of those present.
At the same time the late Professor Sidgwick drew up
a plan which was approved by several of those attending
the meeting and " of which the resolution passed at
that meeting might be considered a part." This
plan was that the Royal Society might enlarge its
scope and include a section corresponding to the " philo-
sophico-historical v and " philological " division of the
German Royal Academies and Societies.
The next step taken was the reference of the matter
to a special committee of the Royal Society.
This Committee point out that four possible ways of
dealing with the matter were submitted to them :
"(1) The nviitioii of an organisation independent of the Royal
Society, though possibly in some way connected with it, in which
they i nigh t both form parts of some larger body, as, for instance,
thr Fivnrli Arudrniies, form ji.irts.of the Institute of France.
"(2) The creation of two 'Academies' within the Royal Society,
12
132 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
one of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, the other of Philosophy-
History, each Academy having its own Council, Secretaries and Presi-
dent, and the President of each being in turn President of the whole
Society.
" (3) The creation of two or of three * Sections ' of the Royal Society,
either A and B, corresponding to the Academies just named ; or, A,
Mathematical and Physical Sciences, B, Biological Sciences and C,
Philosophico- Historical Sciences.
" (4) The election of some twenty-five to fifty Fellows representing
the Philosophico- Historical subjects, to serve as a nucleus, and the
creation of three or four committees, similar to those already existing,
viz., one for Ethnography and Archaeology, one for Philology, one
for Statistics and Political Economy and one for Psychology, the
Officers and Council remaining, so far as statute and enactment are
concerned, precisely as they are at present."
After these schemes had been formulated they were
discussed at an interview with a number of representa-
tives of the philosophico -historical sciences. Concerning
this interview we read :
" They all expressed themselves in favour of any effort for the
corporate representation of those sciences being associated in some
way or other with the Royal Society. They seemed unanimous in
feeling the great desirability of the organisation and official representa-
tion of the Philosophico- Historical subjects, both on the ground of the
general encouragement of their pursuit, and also, and more especially,
as a means of developing the more scientific methods of treating those
subjects.
" The general opinion of these gentlemen upon the practical courses
discussed in the Report seemed to be in favour of the plan numbered
(3) in the Report, but, recognising the practical difficulties in the
way of carrying out any such scheme immediately, they were
generally in favour of an effort being made on the lines laid down
in plan numbered (4) as a beginning, in the belief that should its
adoption lead, as they believe it would, to greater activity in this
country in the studies in question, there might ultimately develop
out of it some more formal organisation, such as is contemplated in
the other plans submitted."
It is frankly stated that the Committee were much
impressed by the concurrence of opinion among the
THE ORGANISATION OF KNOWLEDGE. 133
intlemen whom they consulted and by the high value
iey set on the inclusion within the scope of the Royal
siety's action of the subjects they represented.
After the Report of this Committee was sent in to the
Council, a special meeting of the Society was called for
May 9, 1901. Unfortunately there is no record of what
took place at it, but at the Council meeting in June the
following resolution was passed : " That the Council,
while sympathising with the desire to secure corporate
organisation for the exact literary studies considered
in the Report, is of opinion that it is undesirable that the
Royal Society should itself initiate the establishment
of a British Academy."
The Times now tells us that on June 28, 1901, a month
after this resolution was arrived at, those interested in
the proper representation of the " literary " subjects
met at the British Museum and
M after Iniij^ and careful deliberation resolved to promote the establish-
ment of a British Academy of Historical, Philosophical and Philological
Studies oil conditions which would satisfy the requirements of the
International Association of Academies. It was further decided that
the Academy should petition for incorporation by Royal Charter,
that the nomination of the first Fellows under the proposed
iter should be forthwith taken in hand. Before the close of last
r, on December 17, the British Academy held its first meeting at
the British Museum and petitioned His Majesty for incorporation by
Charter."
According to the draft Charter the petitioners will
be the first Fellows of the Academy and the President
and Council will be elected by the Fellows from amongst
their own number. New Fellows will be elected at a
general meeting of the Fellows.
The announcement in the London Gazette states that
Majesty has referred the petition to a committee of
134 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
the Lords of the Council. Notice is further given that
all petitions for or against such grant should be sent to
the Privy Council Office on or before February 14 next.
A Letter to " The Times." *
To the Editor of The Times.
SIR, All students of natural knowledge in this country
should agree as to th,e importance of the step recently
taken to organise certain branches of it, concerning
which you have given your readers much information.
There are, however, some points connected with the
movement on which you have not yet touched. Will
you permit me to refer to them and the conclusion to
which they lead ?
The petition to His Majesty for a Charter to embrace
the organisation of historical, philosophical and philo-
logical sciences was rendered necessary by the action of the
council of the Royal Society, who declined to " initiate
the establishment of a British Academy " dealing with
these subjects. But, in the first instance, the desire of
those interested in the movement was that the Royal
Society might include in itself a section corresponding
to the philosophico-historical and philological sections
of the Continental academies ; it was not a question of
establishing a British Academy.
To consider the matter in this form a committee of
the Royal Society was appointed and its Report has
recently been published. In this Report we have the
following reference to the subjects dealt with by the his-
torical and philological sections of foreign academies :
These subjects have, in England, hitherto remained unorganised
that is to say, the workers in each one of them have been brought
* January 29, 1 902.
THE ORGANISATION OF KNOWLEDGE. 135
into little or no relation with the workers in each of the others. Societies
have been founded for the promotion of some of them, but these societies
are not linked together by the membership of their leading members
in one body of recognised authority and influence, such as the Royal
Society provides for the investigators of various branches of mathe-
matical, observational and experimental science.
The advantages which the gathering into one body of the men most
eminent in the subjects above specified has secured in Germany,
France, Italy, and Belgium do not exist here, and the absence of any
effort to secure them has often excited the surprise of learned men
in those countries. Neither is there in England any series of Transac-
tions similar to those of the leading academies of Continental Europe,
in which records of the most fruitful inquiries in those subjects, or
even systematised references to such inquiries, may be found.
We are next told that the following reasons, among
others, have been suggested by eminent men as making
it desirable that the Royal Society should take action in
the matter :
Assuming the organisation of the above subjects to be called for
in the general interest of the intellectual progress of the country, the
Royal Society can promote their organisation more effectively than
could l)e done by the persons who are occupied in the study of them,
because these persons have no sort of combined corporate existence,
and no voluntary group of them would appear to have a proper locus
standi for appealing to the public or approaching the Government
in order to attain the object sought.
It has been urged on general grounds that the inclusion by the Royal
Society of a section corresponding to the philosophico-historical ami
philological divisions of the German academies would strengthen the
society by broadening the range of its scientific activity and increasing
it- influence ; and would lie to its a<lvantai!v inasmuch as suchacoursu
would anticipate and thercbv make lUM-.tlless the formation of an
ion which, by gathering the subjects within its scope, mi^ht
to that extent be in rivalry with the Royal Society and tend to narrow
the l"u r itimate r ngc of its activity.
And next comes the most important part of the Report,
in. lie :ii iii'j; that in the past, and by the three Charters
1 by His Majesty Charles II., the subjects und^r
136 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
discussion were, and should be, held to refer to " natural
knowledge," and, therefore, should be dealt with by the
Royal Society :
The society exists for the promotion of natural knowledge. The
interpretation of the term " natural knowledge," according to the
present practice of the Royal Society, assigns to it a range from mathe-
matics to the various biological sciences, and thus secures the inclusion
of the scientific study of man in his biological relations. . . .
It is evident that the chapters have never been interpreted as confin-
ing the " studies " of the society to " further promoting by the authority
of experiments the science of natural things and of useful arts " in
the strict modern meaning of those words. Indeed, the second charter
in terms empowers the society to hold meetings " for the examination
and investigation of experiments and of natural things," and both
charters authorise it to enjoy " mutual intelligence and affairs with
all and all manner of foreigners " ..." in matters or things philo-
sophical, mathematical or mechanical." The provisions of the first
statutes that the business of the society at its meetings shall be " to
order, take account, consider and discourse of philosophical experi-
ments and observations ; to read, hear and discourse upon letters,
reports, and other papers containing philosophical matters, and
also to view and discourse upon rarities of nature and art ;" and the
long and uninterrupted usage to receive papers on observational
sciences, such as geology, or on pure mathematics, certainly docs establish
a contemporanea expositio which must be taken into account as optimus
interpres and fortissimo, in lege.
Even had papers upon philological, psychological or other subjects
been entirely absent, no stress could be laid upon that fact, if in the
opinion of the society those subjects have, under modern methods
of treatment, become observational sciences, and as fully parts of
" natural knowledge " as those subjects which were recognised as
such at the epoch of the foundation of the society.
It would clearly be ultra vires for the society to resolve to receive
a new class of papers, incapable of being regarded either in subject-
matter or in scientific treatment as in the same category as those which
have hitherto been received. But it would not be unlawful for the
society to determine to receive papers on subjects not hitherto regarded
as properly within its scope if it came deliberately to the conclusion
that, in view of the scientific method in which they were now being
treated, those subjects ought not to be excluded from its study.
THE ORGANISATION OF KNOWLEDGE.
137
The committee was not content with expressing its
own view on this important matter ; it privately con-
Ited two high legal authorities, whose opinion led the
mmittee to believe, in confirmation of the views above
tated, that the inclusion within the scope of the society
of such subjects as have been referred to, if treated by
scientific methods, is " within the powers of the society."
Two extracts from the first Charter granted by Charles
, alone seem to establish this conclusion. The Charter
ins as follows (I give the English translation as it
runs in the " Record of the Royal Society, 1879 ") :
Charles II., by the grace of God King of England, Scotland, France
and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc., to all to whom these present
Letters shall come, greeting.
We have long and fully resolved with Ourself to extend not only
the boundaries of the Empire, but also the very arts and sciences.
ie r<- fore we look with favour upon all fonns of learning, but with
particular ^race we encourage philosophical studies, especially those
which by actual experiment attempt either to shape out a new philo-
sophy or to perfect the old. In order, therefore, that such studies,
which have not hitherto been sufficiently brilliant in any part of the
world, may shine conspicuously amongst our people, and that at length
the whole world of letters may always recognise us not only as the
Defender of the Faith, but also as the universal lover and patron of
every kind of truth : Know ye, etc.
Of the " Fellows " we read later on :
The more eminently they are distinguished for the study of every
kind of learning and jjood letters, the more ardently they desire to
promote the honour, studies, and advantage of this Society . . . the
r)re we wish them to lc especially deemed fitting and worthy of l>ein^
mitted into the number of the Fellows of the same Society.
* K\vry kind of learning and good letters" seems to
me pivn y ;:' in MM I. and it does not seem improper to take
the words "philosophical studies," in connection with
jon's definition of philosophy, as dealing with a three-
138 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
fold division, of matters divine (supernatural), natural
and human, which also, perhaps, explains the subsequent
insistence upon natural, as opposed to supernatural
knowledge.
But, without labouring this point further, I suggest
that subjects the study of which by scientific methods
increase the sum of natural knowledge must all stand
on the same footing. I use the word " scientific " in its
widest, which I believe to be the truest, sense, as in-
cluding all additions to natural knowledge got by investi-
gation. Human history and development are as im-
portant to mankind as the history and development of
fishes. The Royal Society now practically neglects the
one and encourages the other.
It is possible, then, to say the least, that the present
general action of the society, and I say general, because
the action changes from time to time, is really not in
accordance with its charters ; it certainly is not with its
first practice. The charters make the society the head
centre of the intellect of the kingdom engaged in making
new natural knowledge, and therefore until these charters
of King Charles II. are abrogated or revised there is no
place logically for a new charter by King Edward VII.
giving power to a new body to deal with the subjects the
duty of the organisation and encouragement of which was
previously committed to the Royal Society.
There can be no question that the gradual departure of
the action of the Royal Society from the course laid down
in the charters, and actually followed for a time, has been
the gradual expansion and increased importance of ex-
perimental and observational methods of work, which of
themselves are sufficient to employ the existing administra -
THE ORGANISATION OF KNOWLEDGE.
139
ive machinery. But if the whole work cannot be done
}ide the society as it exists at present, the question
ises, " Cannot some be organised side by side with it ?"
[ere, again, there may be difficulties ; but, as the com-
mittee wisely say with regard to the first proposal :
We are far from intending to express an opinion that any difficulties
of detail ought to prevent the important issues involved from being
fully considered in their largest bearings, having regard to the great
benefits which might be expected to result to the progress of the philo-
sophico-historical studies, and possibly to the Royal Society itself, from
the inclusion of those studies within the scope of the Society's action.
It is right that I should say that the Royal Society
Council, in the resolution from which I have already
quoted, expresses sympathy with the desire to secure a
>roper representation of the subjects now in question,
id did not refuse to include them within itself, although
action may give colour to the belief in such an effect.
At present the Royal Society is the unique recognised
jentre of the general scientific activity in this country.
Will it be conducive to the interests of science, or
even of the Royal Society itself, that in future there should
be two entirely separate centres ?
But will not this state of things be brought about if,
r ithout any general consideration, a charter is at once
ranted to the new body ?
The important thing to secure is that the two bodies
dealing with the two great groups of scientific subjects
shall form part of one organisation some enlarged Royal
Society. What the nexus shall be is a matter of such
subordinate importance that I do not propose now to
ivl'rr to it further.
.May not this present difficulty, Sir, be really a bless'ng
in (li-miiM v !)os it not merely emphasise the activity
140 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
of the scientific spirit and the employment of the scientific
method in new regions, and suggest that the time has
arrived, at the beginning of a new century and a new
reign, for doing for the science of to-day what Charles II.
did for the science of the seventeenth century that is,
organising and co-ordinating it on a broad basis ?
It is clear that the question so wisely referred by His
Majesty Edward VII. to the Privy Council is no light
one, for the acts of a previous King of England and the
future development of British science are involved. The
present confusion is great and will become greater if a
new charter is granted without a comparison and possible
revision of the existing ones ; and, short of an inquiry,
by a Royal Commission or by some other means, to con-
sider the question, it is difficult to see how the proper
organisation of natural knowledge in the future can be
secured.
It is fortunate that there is ample time for this important
matter to be considered carefully in all its bearings, for not
till 1904 can any British representation of the philo-
sophico-historical subjects be considered by the Inter-
national Association of Academies.
May I finally be permitted to say, Sir, how entirely I
agree with the remarks in the leading article in The Times
of the 16th inst. concerning the importance of organising
literature as well as science ? Science has undoubtedly
gained by the charters of Charles II., and on this ground
alone it may be urged that literature will be a gainer if
it also be similarly organised. Certainly the most im-
pressive sight I saw in Paris last year, when attending
the first meeting of the International Association of
Academies as a Royal Society delegate, was the reception
THE ORGANISATION OF KNOWLEDGE.
141
>f a new literary member of the Academic Franaise.
ie combination of troops representing the Government
id members of other academies representing the In-
itute of France formed a picture which is not easily for-
:otten ; it was one also to set one thinking.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
NORMAN LOCKYER.
A Second Letter to "The Times."*
To the Editor of The Times.
SIR, In the references which have been recently made
the early history of the Royal Society, the charters
>f King Charles II. have frequently been remarked upon,
id also the subject-matter of the communications pub-
lished by the Philosophical Transactions from time to
time. It has been conceded by many who have given
attention to the matter that the charters of King Charles
II. intended that the then newly-founded Society should
take cognisance, not only of observational and experi-
mental science, but also of those philosophical, historical
and philological subjects for which, on the ground that
they lack representation to-day, King Edward VII. has
been petitioned to grant a charter enabling some new
body to look after their interests. It has also been con-
led that the early practice of the Royal Society was
accordance with the suggested intention referred to
ibove, so far as the communications made to it enable
to form a judgment.
In a previous letter on this subject, which you were
good enough to insert in The Times of January 29, I
* March 20, 1902.
142 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
pointed out that a committee specially appointed by
the Council of the Koyal Society to consider the matter
had reported, after consultation with high legal authorities,
that the inclusion of the subjects within the scope of
the Royal Society, for the general organisation of which
it is now proposed to found a new Academy, is within
the powers conferred on it by the charters of that Society.
I venture to give two extracts from the first charter granted
by King Charles II. which alone seem to establish this
conclusion. If you will permit me, I will reproduce
them here :
Charles II., by the grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France
and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc., to all to whom these present
Letters shall come, greeting.
We have long and fully resolved with Ourself to extend not only the
boundaries of the Empire, but also the very arts and sciences. There-
fore we look with favour upon all forms of learning, but with particular
grace we encourage philosophical studies, especially those which by
actual experiment attempt either to shape out a new philosophy or to
perfect the old. In order, therefore, that such studies, which have not
hitherto been sufficiently brilliant in any part of the world, may shine
conspicuously amongst our people, and that at length the whole world
of letters may always recognise us not only as the Defender of the Faith,
but also as the universal lover and patron of every kind of truth :
Know ye, etc.
Of the " Fellows " it is written :-
The more eminently they are distinguished for the study of every
kind of learning and good letters, the more ardently they desire to pro-
mote the honour, studies and advantage of this society . . the more
we wish them to be especially deemed fitting and worthy of being
admitted into the number of the Fellows of the same Society.
Of course it would have been very much more satis-
factory if the committee, instead of enunciating pious
and legal opinions as to what the charters enabled the
Society to do, as abstractedly as if the Society had never
THE ORGANISATION OF KNOWLEDGE. 143
existed, had, seeing that action under the charters had
been going on for nearly two centuries and a- half, told
us what the Society had really done year after year in
the matter of choosing men for election into the Society.
In this way sure proof could be obtained of the general
opinion of what the charters empowered and enjoined
the Society to do, not only at the time they were con-
ferred, but at subsequent dates. This course, which
obviously is the only satisfactory way of arriving at
a conclusion on the questions at issue, was, however,
not open to the committee ; because a complete list of the
officers, Fellows and foreign members elected in each
year from the foundation of the Society was not generally
available.
This gap in our knowledge of the actual life of the
Society has recently been filled, and we can now learn
the kind of work for which the Society considered itself
responsible by the men it elected to do it in its early
days, and especially by those who were elected to fill the
1 lous offices. It will be obvious that a complete in-
quiry of this nature is a matter involving considerable
time and labour ; but in the present state of the ques-
tion raised by the proposition for a new British Academy
it is of such high importance to know the facts that I
have not hesitated to try to get at them, however im-
perfectly ; my inquiry being limited as much as possible.
This has been done by passing over all doubtful cases
and c'onsidering chiefly the first century of the life of the
Society, that is from H>63.
The general result of this limited inquiry may be stated
M follows :
with the presidents. Some were appointed
144 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
on account of their rank, others on account of their con-
tributions to observational or experimental science,
among them Wren, Newton, the Earl of Macclesfield
and others. But besides these we have Sir John Hos-
kins, " a most learned virtuoso as well as a lawyer,"
according to Evelyn ; Samuel Pepys, of diary fame ;
Martin Folkes, an antiquarian " under whom the meetings
were more literary than scientific ; " Sir James Burrow,
an antiquarian, also a lawyer ; and James West, another
antiquarian and collector of coins and given to " black
letter lore." If we pass the first century, we find Sir
John Pringle, a learned physician and professor of meta-
physics and moral philosophy, elected in 1772, and Davies
Gilbert in 1827, who, although addicted to science, was
chiefly an antiquarian and historian.
Among the treasurers we find Abraham Hill, one of the
first appointed, given as much to moral as to natural
philosophy ; Roger Gale, an archaeologist and numis-
matist ; and, again passing the first century, William
Marsden (1802), an Oriental scholar, and Samuel Lysons
(1810), an antiquarian and an artist.
We next come to the secretaries. The most remark-
able thing about these officers is that between 1663 and
1765, of the twenty-nine elected no less than sixteen
were doctors of divinity, medicine or law ; and, so far
as the inquiry has gone, the " Dictionary of National
Biography " shows that they were not merely profes-
sional men, but scholars first and writers afterwards.
The secretary elected in 1776 was Joseph Planta, the
librarian of the British Museum ; while in 1812 Humphry
Davy! was followed by Taylor Combe, an archaeologist
and numismatist.
THE ORGANISATION <>K KNOWLEDGE
145
Tho office of foreign secretary was created in 17215.
Ef the eight appointed down to 1772, four were doctors
: medicine, and they were selected possibly for the
same reason as their colleagues among the secretaries.
Maty, who was elected in 1772, was the assistant libra-
rian in the British Museum.
The enormously wide area of knowledge from which
the officers of the Society were drawn during the first
century is in sharp antithesis to the narrow ground of
award of the Copley medal, which was first conferred in
1731. The grant of this medal is limited to the author
of the most important discovery or contribution to
science by experiment or otherwise ; and the greater the
divergence between the officers' and Copley medallists'
lists, the less, naturally, was the limitation of the Fellow-
ship to those interested alone in experiment or obser-
vation.
We next come to the Fellows of the Society. The
following lists are based upon a rapid reconnaissance of
those who occur early in the alphabetical order, using
Hole's " Brief Biographical Dictionary " as a means of
determining their identity. The names of many Fellows
are absent from Hole, and there are some incertitudes,
besides which Hole's definitions are very terse. The
lists, however, are given for what they are worth ; and
there can be little doubt that they will soon be replaced
by complete and authoritative lists officially complied.
It is important that the Lords of the Privy Council
should possess such documents to assist them in the
important inquiry with which they are charged ; and
we may hope that this eagerness to possess is only
equalled by the anxiety of the Royal Society to
K
146 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
provide them if their compilation be in the interests of
truth :
Archaeologists and Antiquarians.
Ames, Josh - 1743
Amyot, Thos. -
Ashmole, Elias - 1663
Astle, T. 1766
Ayloffe, J. - 1731
Baker, G.
Brander, G. 1754
Bridges, J. 1708
Churchill, Winston 1664
Gale, R. 1718
Gale, T. - 1677
Writers.
Askew, Ant. 1749
Barrington, Daines 1767
Bathurst, Ralph 1663
Becket, Wm. 1718
Bentley, R. 1695
Birkenhead, J.
Bowlden, T.
Brocklesby, R 1746
Brown, R. -
Bruce, J. 1791
Burnet, T. -
Burney, C. (Music) -
Cadogan, W. 1752
Chandler, J. 1734
Edgeworth, R. L.
Egerton, F. H.
Farmer, R. 1791
1 Green, T. - 1798
Historians.
Abel, Clarke 1819
Barnes, Joshua - 1710
Bates, G. 1663
Beaufort, Louis do. 1746
THE ORGANISATION OF KNOWLEDGE.
147
Bernard, C.
Birch, T.
Clarke, J. G.
Coxe, W. -
Duclos, C. -
Edwards, B.
Ellis, G. A.
Colebrooke, H. T.
Dickenson, E.
Akenside, Mark
Browne, J. H.
Byron, Lord
Denham
Dryden, J. -
Ellis, G. -
Bruce, James
Brydone, P.
Carteret, P.
Chardin, J.
Adair, James
Aland, J. F.
Arden, R. P.
Dalrymple, J.
Philologists.
Poets.
Travellers.
Lawyers.
1696
1734
1792
1782
1764
1794
1816
1789
1816
1677
1753
1749
1816
1663
1663
1797
1776
1773
1664
1682
1788
1711
1788
1796
Although the matter has not as yet been inquired into,
there is already ample evidence that the foreign members
were selected with the same catholicity as the ordinary
Fellows. Thus Sorbii-re, an eminent French litterateur,
was elected in 1663 (the first year) ; the Italian historian
"rio Leti was elected in 1681 ; and the French his-
toran Michael Le Vassor in 1701.
148 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
It does not seem possible that any unprejudiced mind,
after a perusal of the above statements, limited though
they are to a point of time, and, in the case of the Fellows,
to a few letters of the alphabet, and inaccurate as they
may well be here and there, can deny that the reconnais-
sance affords valuable evidence that the action of the
Royal Society for the first century after it had received
its charters was as broad as the charters themselves.
The Society tried to do, and succeeded in doing, the duty
which the charters imposed upon it.
We learn from the above statements that for the period
over which my hasty inquiry has gone, Britain possessed
a general organisation of learning as complete, though
not so detailed, as that of the Institute of France or any
other foreign academy to-day. King Charles II. had,
in fact, in his charters, and the Royal Society had, in
fact, in its action upon them, anticipated the work of
Napoleon by very nearly a century and a half ; the por-
tals of the Royal Society and of the Institute of France
were equally wide, and wide enough to admit the most
illustrious men produced in each country.
If I have erred in any way in reading the facts or in
drawing conclusions from them, I sincerely trust that
someone with more leisure and knowledge than myself will
discover where I have gone wrong and at once put the
matter right. I am the more anxious that this should
be done because I gather from the petition of the Royal
Society Council to King Edward VII., which was printed
in the Times of February 27, that the condition of things
which the facts reveal is either unknown to the Council
or regarded by them as a matter not worth mentioning.
In that petition His Majesty is informed that the
THE ORGANISATION OF KNOWLEDGE. U ( .)
President and Council are of opinion that the studies
which it has been shown were fully provided for by King
Charles II. 's charters to the Royal Society, and " taken
care of " for, at all events, the first century to wh'ch my
inquiry was limited, " ought to be taken care of by some
academic organisation, and that this should be effected,
not by the Royal Society taking charge of these studies,
but by the establishment of some other body."
I submit, Sir, that the view that a complete inquiry
should be made before any step be taken towards creating
a new body to do what the charters of King Charles II.
enjoined and empowered the Royal Society to under-
take is vastly strengthened by the facts now brought
to light, which show us what the Royal Society actually
did.
This inquiry was thus referred to in the petition to
the King, dated February 14, which was signed by many
eminent representatives of the intellectual, industrial
ana other forces of the Kingdom :
" We Your 1'etitioners humbly pray that Your Majesty may be gra-
riously pleased to cause an inquiry to be made with a view of instituting
a general and formal organisation of all the studies depending upon
scientific method now carried on similar to that inaugurated for the
philosophical studies of the seventeenth century by the charters of His
Maj.-stv, King Charles II."
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
NORMAN LOCKYER.
CUT., .l/"/W/, 11.
THE EDUCATION OF NAVAL OFFICERS.
(1903.)
!
The Board of Admiralty are to be entirely congratu-
lated upon their new scheme of entry, education and
training of officers.
The most important parts of it are that it shows that,
in the opinion of the Admiralty, for the naval service the
education obtained by studying things instead of books
is essential, and that the scheme set forth is sound and
broad in its educational details. The mere existence of it
for the purpose intended is certain in time, we believe, to
have a profound effect, not only upon the entrance
examinations to the Army and the Civil Service, but
upon secondary and university education generally. We
may go further and say that if the Council of Defence
were anything more than a name, the naval scheme
would have formed part of a more general one embracing
the whole armed service of the country.
Let us see what improvements are proposed upon the
present system. First of all, a battleship is to be made
more of a fighting unit than it is at present by having
all the officers educated alike up to a certain point,
whether navigating, gunnery, torpedo, engineer, and those
more numerous lieutenants whose duties are not specially
devoted to any particular branch, but excepting medical
officers and the accountant branch. The Army is a
TttE EDUCATION OF NAVAL OFFICERS ir,i
non-scientific body with scientific corps ; the Navy is to
be a scientific body all round.
At present, the marine officers enter late after the often
soul-destroying training of the ordinary schools which
provide the officers of the Army. The engineer officers
enter earlier at a special naval engineering establishment.
The executive officers enter the Britannia at the age of
fourteen and a half to fifteen and a half for four terms,
and we believe the instruction given in the first three is
something like this :
Mathematics, including Navigation and Chart
Work - - 30J hours a fortnight.
French - 6
Steam - 4 .,
Mechanical Drawing - 3J
Instruments - 3 ,, ,,
Physics - 1
Naval History - 1 ,, ,,
Seamanship - 6 ,,
In the fourth term, the cadets are sent for a cruise
and are further instructed in practical navigation, instru-
ments and chart work, steam and seamanship.
It will readily be gathered, then, that on the present
system, in the schools which furnish the cadets, not much
a 1 1 ention need be paid to physical science and the mental
training that it brings, if one hour a fortnight is all that is
provided for it on the Britannia.
Under the new scheme, all the officers to whom refer-
ence has been made will enter the Britannia between the
ages of twelve and thirteen, thus saving some two years
ol' ordinary school training. As the age is so low. nomina-
tion ami a limited competitive examination are preferred
to an open examination. This, we consider, is justified,
152 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
but some alterations seem desirable with regard to the
nominations.
The scheme, in the first place, provides that these
nominations are to be limited generally to the First Lord,
with certain privileges, elaborately set out, conferred
upon individual members of the Board, secretaries, flag
officers, commodores and captains. This looks too much
as if the Navy were looked upon as an Admiralty
preserve. We can imagine, although Sir Michael Hicks-
Beach has so far made no revelations with regard to the
Navy, that the officers who have to look after promotions
may think, as we think, that the nominations should be
exclusively in the hands of the First Lord and of the
Prime Minister, for it is a question of the whole country
with all its interests. The principle of heredity may
be pushed too far, for captains will be admirals when
their nominees come up for promotion as commanders,
and this fact is quite enough, human nature being what it
is, to suggest how undesirable the so-called privileges are.
Then comes another point. The payment for each
cadet entered is 751. per annum, but the Lords of the
Admiralty reserve the power of reducing this to 40Z. in
the case of sons of naval, army or marine officers, or of
the civilian staff at the Admiralty.
If the whole Navy and Army, why not the whole Civil
Service ? and, indeed, why limit the concession to the
public services when good cause can be shown for an
extension ? The more rigid the limitation the less certain
the capture of future Nelsons, and the more justification
will be given to a possible outcry that the Navy is being
made a close preserve for the well to do.
Were the limit extended, a natural sequel would be to
THE EDUCATION OF NAVAL OFFlrEfiS. 153
nter originally for the Britannia a larger number of
oys say some 30 per cent. than would be wanted
>r the service, admitting the required number of these
3 the service by strict open compstition at the end of
be Britannia period and rejecting the rest. In this
ray, some objections to the nomination system at entry
will be met. If only a few are rejected under the
jroposed scheme it would be a stigma, whereas if the num-
is larger it would only be considered a misfortune, and
the rejected would have had the best education in England,
one fitting them for any walk in life, as we shall show.
We can have nothing but praise for the subjects chosen
for the examination for entrance to the Britannia, which
are as follows :
PART I.
(1) English (including writing from dictation, simple composition
and reproduction of the gist of a short passage twice retid aloud to
the candidates).
(2) (a) History and (6) Geography
(a) History (simple questions in English History and growth
of the British Empire).
(6) Geography (simple questions, with special reference to
the British Empire).
(:;) Fivurh or German (importance will be attached to the oral
examination).
(4) (a) Arithmetic, and (6) Algebra-
Jo) Arithmetic (elementary, including vulgar and dLM-im.il
fractions).
(6) Algebra to simple equations, with easy problems.
(5) Geometry (to include the subject-matter of the first book of
Kuclid, or its equivalent in experimental geometry and mensuration.
The use of instruments and of algebraic.il methods will be allowed).
PART II.
(Ono only t<> h- takMi.)
(6) L +y passages for translation from Latin into English
and from Kniilish into Lain, and simple grammatical questions).
(7) A serond modern lan<jua^< (of which, if not French or Germ.in.
154 "EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
notice must be previously given), or an advanced examination in the
language selected under Part I.
(8) Experimental science (easy questions with the object of testing
practical knowledge and powers of observation).
The cadets are to remain four years in the Britannia,
the instruction comprising an extension of the present
course there, and we rejoice at the promise that the
present one hour a fortnight for physics is to be replaced by
a " thorough elementary instruction in physics and marine
engineering, including the use of tools and machines."
This, of course, means that there are to be laboratories
and practical work, for book- work alone in such subjects
is next to useless. Part of this instruction is also to be
carried out afloat.
Such a course as this must not only give the cadets
a good grounding in the subjects necessary to their
profession, but such a mental training as is sure to lead to
that brain-power which lies at the root of all good organisa-
tion and administration.
After these four years, the cadets will go to sea and
become midshipmen. We are told in Lord Selborne's
memorandum :
" Special attention will then be paid to their instruction in mechanics
and the other applied sciences and to marine engineering. The instruc-
tion of the midshipmen in seamanship will be given, as at present,
by an executive officer deputed by the captain ; otherwise it will,
under the general responsibility of the captain, be supervised by the
engineer, gunnery, marine, navigating and torpedo lieutenants of
their respective ships ; they will be examined annually as to their
progress in seamanship, navigation and pilotage, gunnery, torpedo
work and engineering, all set papers being, as at present, sent from
the Admiralty."
At the end of three years, every midshipman who has
passed the qualifying standard at the last annual
examination and the final examination in seamanship will
>UCATtO]
AVAL OFFICERS.
155
une an acting sub-lieutenant, and if abroad return to
England and proceed to the College at Greenwich for a three
months' course of mathematics, navigation and pilotage,
followed by an examination. Afterwards he goes to Ports-
mouth for a six months' course in gunnery, torpedo work and
engineering, at the close of which he will be examined and
passing out be confirmed in the rank of sub -lieutenant.
How the cadets are to be sent to sea is not yet settled,
lither they will serve for the whole three years as
midshipmen to battleships and cruisers, ordinarily
commissioned, or the first part of this period will be passed
in specially commissioned training ships. It is quite
decided that at whatever period they are posted to
ordinarily commissioned battleships and cruisers, com-
pulsory school on board these ships shall cease.
The young officers who will pass out of the college at
Portsmouth between the ages of nineteen and twenty
will all have received exactly the same scientific training,
and will have had opportunities of displaying their powers
of organisation and of dealing with men.
We are not yet told what the common training is
to be at Greenwich or at Portsmouth. We believe the
present course for sub -lieutenants is somewhat as follows:
PART I.
Length of course - 8 weeks
Trigonometry,
Mathematics
Mechanics,
Navigation,
- 21 hours a week.
instruments. .
Strain - '2
FrviK-h - -2 }>
Surveying 3
Physics - ..-.-j )t
156 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
Length of course
Mathematics
Physics -
PART II.
Advanced PureMaths.,^
Statics,
Hydrostatics,
Dynamics,
Navigation.
11 weeks.
"27 hours a week,
Executive officers
| 1 hour lecture.
I 3 practical.
31
PILOTAGE.
Length of course - - 6 weeks
28 hours a week.
Now the differentiation begins. It seems to be as
follows :
Special navigation,
gunnery,
torpedo,
Unspecialised,
Engineer officers,
Royal Marine officers,
and the object to be kept in view is stated to be to make
them fit to perform those specialised duties which are the
product of modern science ; nothing is said about those
officers who have no specialised duties.
The Executive Branch.
On this differentiation, all officers ranking as sub-
lieutenants will go to sea for two years.
The next phase is that after two years at sea all the
executive sub -lieutenants will be promoted to the rank
of lieutenant on gaining the same qualifying watch-
keeping certificate as at present. All those who have
passed their examinations exceptionally well will, as
now, receive accelerated promotion. Then comes a
selection by the Admiralty of those among them who are
TI1K EDUCATION <>K NAVAL < >KKirKKs.
to bo trained as specialists in gunnery, torpedo work, or
navigation ; these will go to the Royal Naval College
at Greenwich for special courses. We presume that this
" selection " for training as specialists represents a
promotion for those so selected.
After five years' seniority in the rank of lieutenant, all
officers will have to pass an examination for promotion to
the rank of commander in certain technical subjects.
These are :
Court-martial procedure,
International law,
Knowledge of British and foreign warships, guns, torpedoes, &c.,
Naval history,
Signals,
Strategy,
Tactics and battle formation.
This examination as it exists at present in the scheme
is to be undergone alike by those who are engaged in
the specialised scientific duties in the ship, with all their
responsibilities, and those under existing practice a
much larger number who have under the scheme no
specialised scientific duties. Now, it is obvious that these
latter will be under much better conditions for preparing
for an examination, and that the former will have no
opportunity of letting their specialised duties tell in the
examination, so that the effect of it will be to favour the
promotion of those who were not selected to perform
specialised duties.
The Engineer Branch.
On this differentiation, the engineer officers, sub-
lieutenants about the age of nineteen, instead of going
to sea for two years like the executive officers, will go to
the college at Keyham for a professional course, the
158 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
exact duration of which will be subsequently determined.
At the expiration of this course a proportion will be
selected to go to Greenwich for a further course, while
the remainder go to sea. They will then, if found quali-
fied, all be promoted to be lieutenants under the same
conditions as the executives. The nature and duration of
the special course at Greenwich will be very carefully
determined, and an opportunity will be afforded to those
officers selected for it to make themselves acquainted with
the latest developments of engineering science, not only at
Greenwich but at the great civil engineering establishments
and institutions which are to be found in the country.
The engineers are now to be put on an equality with
the executive officers, the ranks and uniform being as-
similated, but with a difference, for while the executive
officers specially trained for navigation (N), gunnery (G),
and torpedo (T) lose these letters when promoted to be
captains, the engineers are to retain the special (E) to
the rank of Rear-Admiral (E), and as a solatium for not
being allowed to command a ship are to receive higher
pay and are promised " high appointments." Whether
this arrangement will be carried out when the time comes,
some twenty years hence, the future will show. In all
the discussions on the complexity of the machinery of
the modern man-of-war, the, as great or greater, com-
plexity of the old sailing three-decker seems to have
been entirely lost sight of.
The Royal Marines.
With regard to the sub -lieutenants drafted to the
Royal Marines, we read as follows :
" After his final examination as sub-lieutenant along with the future
JATION 01
[CERS.
159
tecutive and engineer officer, the young Royal Marine officer will
receive his special military training during the next two years partly
at the college at Greenwich and partly at the headquarters of divisions
or the depot ; the training of all these officers will be extended so as
to correspond more closely to the training now received by the young
officers of the Royal Marine Artillery ; and after this two years' training,
the young Marine officer will receive the rank and pay of lieutenant of
in irines so as to put him financially on an equality with the executive
sub-lieutenant. As in the case of the executive lieutenants, specially
good officers will qualify as gunnery and torpedo lieutenants, provided
that they have kept watch at sea for one year, have passed the test
examination for qualifying for gunnery and torpedo lieutenants, and
have been specially selected and recommended. . . . The future
Royal Marine officer will thus become available for keeping watch at
sea and for general executive duties on board ship up to and including
le rank of captain of marines."
ihi
Such is a short abstract of a scheme which we believe
will be of the utmost value to the Naval Service. Edu-
cationally and scientifically, it has so much to recom-
mend it that its authors, and chief among them, Lord
Rosebery tells us, we must hold Sir John Fisher, are to
be warmly congratulated.
Only one conclusion can be drawn from the scheme as
a whole ; many of the anticipated difficulties will have
vanished before it comes into full operation some ten
years hence, and the effect of the practical work in pure
science now to be generally introduced for the first time,
and the opportunities the officers will have of becoming
acquainted and being responsible for every class of duty,
>th scientific and administrative, will weld them into
a homogeneous body, each member of which should have
id his brain-power so thoroughly developed that the
jatest seientific skill will generally be combined with
the highest powers ot' organisation. At present, it would
'in, the very opposite is ill- for otherwise the
160 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
present Admiralty system of promotions cannot be de-
fended. Nor is the difference in the treatment of the
various branches limited to the promotions. Certain
lieutenants are at present selected for certain specially
scientific duties ; this leaves a large residuum not so
selected. Special allowances are given to the navigating,
gunnery and torpedo lieutenants in a ship, but the first
lieutenant, who may be taken as the representative
of the large body of non-specialists, not only gets a
smaller allowance, but has to spend money in eking out
the Admiralty's meagre supply of paint.
The allowance paid to the navigating officer is the
highest, and it might be assumed, therefore, that his
duties are considered important ; but what happens to
him ? We are informed that of 187 commanders pro-
moted captains between June, 1892, and June, 1902, only
sixteen, that is one in eleven, have specially studied
navigation and all that navigation means, and had the
real handling of battleships in tactical exercises. Further,
that these sixteen have been promoted so late that none
of them, in ordinary circumstances, can become admirals
on the active list.
Recent sad experiences both with flag-ships and
smaller craft 100 " accidents " to torpedo boats and
t.b.d.'s in two years have taught us that the best admiral
and the best commander, even of a torpedo boat, will be
he who knows most about what ships can do in various
circumstances and how to make them do it. The most
instructed navigator will always be the safest tactician.
Leading a great fleet into action and drilling men in the
duties performed in a single ship are vastly different
affairs.
nmC'KKS.
The present system, however, as we have seen, bars
the promotion of a navigating officer to the higher ranks.
So that all the admirals, the future leaders of our battle
fleets, eventually to be selected from among the 187
captains to whom we have referred, will be the least
instructed and least practised in navigation and all that
navigation means in the way of handling ships.
We are told that information with regard to the promo-
tion of gunnery and torpedo officers is much more difficult
to obtain, but this is of little importance, as their functions
are necessarily limited to single ships and can have no
bearing on tactics or the leading of fleets into action.
To the plain man, this result seems curious. Other
reasons than that we have suggested have been given,
but whatever the reason may be we are not concerned
cither to attack or defend the Admiralty we may hope
that under the new system the apparent paradox will
( disappear, and it seems a pity to wait until then.
There is one part of the scheme of instruction which
calls for criticism in a scientific journal. We read of
special schools of gunnery, engineering and torpedo
work, but no school of navigation is referred to.
It is a question whether an officer who has been gene-
rally trained and has been six years at sea will derive
any benefit from going to a land college to learn naviga-
t mi. What is really wanted to complete the scheme
on true scientific lines is a navigation school afloat at
this period of the officer's career where each member
of the batch could take charge, under proper supervision
of course, not only in tideways and strong currents, among
traffic and in entering and leaving harbours, but also in
the open Atlantic.
162 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
This condition might be utilised by sending Marconi
ethergrams, which would not only enable the Meteoro-
logical Office vastly to improve its service, but would
give the young officers an interest in meteorology, a
science which is still important to those who go to sea,
though we find no reference to it in the memorandum.
Another important point that would be gained by this
method of procedure would be to teach the officer that
the roll of his ship will depend to some extent upon its
presentation to the sea running at the time, so that there
will be courses on which the fighting platform can be made
more stable than on others. With homogeneous fleets,
this may replace the " getting to windward " of old days
preparatory to a naval engagement.
When we pass from the criticism of the new arrange-
ments to the first steps actually taken to give effect to
them, the opinion is quite general that the Admiralty
is to be entirely congratulated. Prof. Ewing, who may
be looked upon as the creator of the admirable engineer-
ing school at Cambridge, thereby showing that his powers
of administration and organisation are on a par with his
scientific acquirements, has been selected to fill the post
of Director- General of Naval Instruction ; his duty,
we take it, will, to a large extent, be to do for the personnel
what the Director of Naval Construction does for the
materiel of the fleet.
We may be convinced not only that with such a
strong man as this at the helm the complete scientific
instruction of officers will be insisted upon, but that
practical laboratory instruction of the juniors in mathe-
matics and pure science will be secured.
Indeed, we may go further, and say that they have
THK KPIT'ATmx < >K \\V.\L OFFICERS,
already been secured in most admirable fashion, for
Lord Selborne, in the speech to which we have already
referred, spoke as follows :
" Without pledging myself to exact detail, I will give a general
sketch of the kind of education that will be given. It includes not only
that special education for which the school will exist, but that general
education which every officer and gentleman ought to have. History,
geography, physical geography, English and French will be taught. I
riot say that other modern languages will not be taught. Mathe-
natics, algebra, arithmetic, trigonometry, mechanics, physics, labor-
atory work, seamanship, drill and engineering will be taught. There
v/ill be laboratories and workshops in which the boys will be accustomed
to the use of tools from the very commencement. There will be vessels
c if all sorts for use and demonstration, from a launch to a battleship,
,ind generally an effort will be made, while not neglecting the general
education of the boys, to start them from the moment of their entering
the college on the education of a naval officer."
When we compare this programme with the one hour
a fortnight in physics in the Britannia, and no laboratory
within sight, students of science well recognise that naval
education for the future will be conducted on business
principles, and we may again express our regret that
such a system, mutatis mutandis, is still a thing to hope
for in some dim distant future in the case of the Army.
It has already been pointed out how the subject
of navigation suffered generally from the absence of
a school afloat for practical work similar to those pro-
vided long ago for gunnery and torpedo work. Not
only is this defect in the system to disappear in the case
of the junior officers, but as stated in the circular letter
to whir.h we have referred, the regulations for the
instruction of navigating officers have been revised so
that a d< 'finite course of practical training may be given
llnMii in a navigation school ship which is about to be
iblishcd at Portsmouth, with a suitable staff of
164 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
instructors. The course of instruction while they are
attached to the school ship will last for ninety working
days, part of the time being spent at sea in the ship and
the remainder on shore. While going through the course
they will live on the school ship.
After the candidates have qualified in the school they
will serve for a short period in the large ships of the
Mediterranean, Home and Channel fleets, so as to obtain
experience under the navigating officers in the work
of a fleet in regard to navigating duties.
It would be difficult to overestimate the importance
of these new departures, about which very little has
been said in the various discussions of the new scheme,
although, in our opinion, they are precisely those by
which the greatest benefit to the service will be secured
in the future.
Leaving on one side the objections to the new scheme
which have been based on prejudice or a complete ignor-
ance of the changes in any naval service which the pro-
gress of science has rendered inevitable, we may say
that the question of the possible interchangeability of
the officers at some distant date has attracted most
attention in relation to the new training of the engineers.
On this point opinion has rapidly grown in favour of the
new scheme, since inquiry has shown what a large com-
mon basis of pure science underlies the proper perform-
ance of any one of the specialised duties. The objections,
in short, have been held by advocates of technical
education in its worst sense, that is, the rule-of-thumb
carrying out of practical processes without any inkling of
the scientific principles involved.
Although the new scheme provides for a system of
THE EDUCATION OF NAVAL OFFICERS. 165
intercliangeability when once it is in full working order,
the present practice is vastly different, and as we consider
this interchangeability of paramount importance from
the point of view of utilising to the utmost the results of
the complete scientific instruction of our naval officers
to be provided in future. It is important to return to
this subject in somewhat fuller detail to show the
important bearing of another part of the new circular.
We may begin by saying that our present naval officers,
so far as their scientific training goes, may be divided
into two categories, well trained and less trained ; these
are the equivalents of the " specialised " and " not
specialised " of the Admiralty memorandum setting
forth the scheme.
The well-trained or specialised officers have to deal
with (1) navigation (but so far without a navigating
school), (2) gunnery with a gunnery school, and (3) tor-
pedoes with a torpedo school. We may say that the
lieutenants performing these specialised duties comprise
roughly about one-third of the total numbers. They get
special allowances for their special duties.
But it must at once be stated that there are many duties
on board ship for the proper performance of which special
training, not of a scientific character in the ordinary
acceptation of the word, is equally required, and, of course,
these duties have to be provided for. They are carried
on by the " unspecialised " lieutenants, who are roughly
twice as numerous as those who have received a full
scientific training. These are employed as watch keepers
and in connection with general ship duties. They are
" deck officers " as opposed to the scientific officers. The
less scientifically trained or deck officer gets little or no
166 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
allowance ; on the other hand he is expected to spend
money in painting ship. We see then that under the
present system the officers performing each particular
piece of work, whether scientific or merely professional,
are for the most part in water-tight compartments ;
there are differences in the amount of special instruction
they receive, the kind of work they do and the allow-
ances they get.
According to the present practice the less scientifically
trained officers get the lion's share of promotion ; that,
in fact, the promotion has been in the inverse ratio of the
scientific nature of the work done.
It has been urged in defence of this practice that scien-
tific knowledge is of less value in the higher ranks than that
which is derived from a complete mastery of all the details
of a ship's general organisation, which can only be gained
by the constant performance of the " deck duties " to
which reference has been made. So that if we take the
navigator, the most important scientific officer, on the
one hand, and the first lieutenant, the most important
deck officer, on the other, the thing works out in this way.
The navigator, because his duties are so onerous and are
never changed, knows nothing of deck duties. The first
lieutenant, because his duties are never changed, is
unlikely ever to become a competent navigator. The
navigator, because he has not had an opportunity of
learning deck duties, has his promotion retarded so that
he can never get on the active list of admirals. The first
lieutenant, because he is necessarily familiar with deck
duties, is the first to be promoted, and is thus sure of
employment on the active list of admirals.
The baneful effects of such a system as this, which are
NAVAL OFFICERS.
twofold, have already been fully set out. The Admiralty
indicated its contempt for scientific as opposed to mere
professional training, and the admirals' list was swamped
by men who knew little of navigation, although this, of
course, finds one of its highest outcomes in handling ships
in tactical exercises and in order of battle.
It was next shown that while, as determined by the
scheme, the interchangeability of all officers, including
the engineer officers, must be secured ten years hence,
there were reasons why the interchangeability of at least
some of the duties of the existing executive officers should
be commenced at once. We rejoice to learn from the new
circular that this also is to be done.
Lieutenants (N.) will in future be placed on exactly
the same footing as regards executive command and ship's
duty generally as gunnery and torpedo lieutenants, and are
not to be excused from any ship's duties except those
which interfere with the special duties pertaining to them.
They will be appointed and succeed to the position of
first lieutenant, if a vacancy occurs, in all ships where a
commander is borne exactly in the same manner as any
other specialist officer.
In rendering the special report on the qualifications of a
navigating officer, a further clause is to be added, dealing
with his capabilities as an executive officer.
Further, midshipmen who show special aptitude are,
whenever possible when the ship is under way, to be taken
off other duties, and to navigate the ship independently
from the after bridge, fixing positions on the chart and
bringing the result of such work to the navigating officer.
Instead of one commissioned officer taking sights and
working the reckoning daily, arrangements are to be made,
168 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
when practicable, for one junior lieutenant or sub -lieu-
tenant to be taken partially off watch-keeping so as to
work with the navigating officer for ten working days
under way.
The officer thus told off is to be on deck when coasting,
making the land, going in and out of harbour, etc., and
is to be in every way encouraged to get an insight into
navigating duties. If at the end of the ten days the
captain is satisfied with his work, he will be relieved
and another officer is to be told off for this duty.
These important changes can be urged on two grounds.
In the first place, there is the obvious benefit to the Service
which will be secured when all captains and admirals are
made equally acquainted with both their scientific and
professional duties by interchanging them while they are
lieutenants and commanders. In the second place, the
preparation and simplification of the carrying out of the
new scheme, by which another class of specialised officers,
the engineers, will be introduced in the future, will be
vastly facilitated by organising and testing the best way
of interchanging duties on a small scale over a limited
area.
We have referred chiefly to the navigator among the
scientific officers, and no doubt the Admiralty has dealt
with him first, because his duties are the most specialised ;
but if the interchange is advantageous in his case, the
other specialists will follow, and, speaking only from
the scientific side, knowing nothing of professional
difficulties to be surmounted, it seems to us that such a
preliminary experimental study of the problem which
awaits the Admiralty in the future, and which, if faced along
the whole line, at the same time, may prove of Herculean
THE EDUCATION OF NAVAL OFFICERS.
169
proportions and be fraught with dangers of breakdowns,
must commend itself as a scientific method. Our view
of the wisdom of such an interchangeability among the
present officers is strengthened by information which has
been furnished us as to the procedure in the German Navy,
which enables us to compare the two systems, and in our
opinion fully justifies the policy of the new circular.
The distribution of duties amongst executive officers
of the German Navy is as follows. As in the British
Service every officer is educated in seamanship, naviga-
tion, gunnery and torpedo service. In the course of
their service the various qualifications of the officers are
carefully noted, and especially if they show superiority
in any one of the above-mentioned branches. Ships in
the German Navy are commissioned for two years. The
list of officers for any given ship is made out by the
Admiralty at Berlin. The next senior officer after the
captain becomes the executive officer. After him the
officer who is most proficient (according to the returns)
in navigation and pilotage is appointed as navigating
officer, without regard to seniority as lieutenant. He
who is most proficient in gunnery is appointed " artillery
officer," and so with the torpedo officer. Qualification
regulates the selection of each officer for special duties,
not his seniority as lieutenant'. The specialisation of an
officer for any particular duty only lasts for the two years'
commission. In the next commission the navigating
officer may be artillery or torpedo officer, or an ordinary
watch keeper without special duty. It is exceedingly
rare for an officer to be appointed for navigating duties
for more than two years, as the Admiralty require every
officer to go through a probation as navigator in order
170 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
to ensure that captains who are responsible for the navigation
of the ship shall know their work in that respect. An appar-
ently weak point in this system is that for a time after
the appointment of an officer to navigating duties ships
are not so well navigated as they might be, since for the
first few months of his time the navigator is really learning
his work. Gunnery and torpedo work may be learnt in
harbour, but navigating can only be learnt by actual
practice and experience at sea. But, on che other hand,
the strength of this system is that all officers have practical
training at sea as navigators with a captain who has gone
completely through the navigating mill and knows how to
detect any failure in the navigator which might endanger
the ship. For squadrons an officer who has shown good
ability as navigator in a single ship is selected as navigator.
On this system, whilst ability in any branch (N., G.,
or T.) is recognised, an officer is not unduly specialised
to the detriment of his knowledge in other branches
of his profession. In the British Navy the gunnery
and torpedo officers are occupied with their special duties
nearly the whole of their time as lieutenants, but they
go to deck duties when promoted commander, although
their knowledge of navigation and the handling of the
larger ships is practically nil. But the navigator is
occupied in special duties when promoted commander
as well as during his service as lieutenant, some fifteen
years in all at least, and is allowed no practice in other
branches of a naval officer's profession, and because he
has not been allowed to have any such practice, he is
discharged to the coast guard, his naval career is broken,
and the service loses a man who has had the best possible
training for leading ships into action.
THE EDUCATION OF NAVAL OFFICERS. 171
Surely this comparison shows that the question of
interchangeability has already been considered in
the German Navy on the lines which we indicated as
beneficial for our own ; and in this we see an additional
argument why the preliminary trial which we suggested
on scientific grounds in our own Navy, and to which
the Admiralty now stands committed, should at all
events be welcomed as a first step to the wider inter-
changeability to which the Admiralty is certain to be
forced in the future, for of the progress and need of
science in the armed service of a nation there will be no
end.
THE INFLUENCE OF BRAIN-POWER ON
HISTORY.*
-:
(1903.)
My first duty to-night is a sad one. I have to refer to a
great loss which this nation and this Association have
sustained. By the death of the great Englishman and
great statesman who has just passed away we members
of the British Association are deprived of one of the most
illustrious of our Past-Presidents. We have to mourn
the loss of an enthusiastic student of science. We re-
cognise that as Prime Minister he was mindful of the
interests of science, and that to him we owe a more general
recognition on the part of the State of the value to the
nation of the work of scientific men. On all these grounds
you will join in the expression of respectful sympathy
with Lord Salisbury's family in their great personal loss,
which your Council has embodied this morning in a
resolution of condolence.
Last year, when this friend of science ceased to be
Prime Minister, he was succeeded by another statesman
who also has g'ven many proofs of his devotion to philo-
sophical studies, and has shown in many utterances that
he has a clear understanding of the real place of science
* Presidential Address at the British Association Meeting at Southport
in 1903.
INFLUENCE OF BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY. m
in modern civilisation. We, then, have good grounds for
hoping that the improvement in the position of science
in this country which we owe to the one will also be the
care of his successor, who has honoured the association
by accepting the unanimous nomination of your Council
to be your President next year, an acceptance which
adds a new lustre to this Chair.
On this we may congratulate ourselves all the more
because I think, although it is not generally recognised,
that the century into which we have now well entered
may be more momentous than any which has preceded
it, and that the present history of the world is being so
largely moulded by the influence of brain-power, which
in these modern days has to do with natural as well as
human forces and laws, that statesmen and politicians
will have in the future to pay more regard to education
and science as empire -builders and empire-guarders than
they have paid in the past.
The nineteenth century will ever be known as the one
in which the influences of science were first fully realised
in civilised communities ; the scientific progress was so
gigantic that it seems rash to predict that any of its
successors can be more important in the life of any nation.
Disraeli, in 1873, referring to the progress up to that
year, spoke as follows :
" How much has happened in these fifty years a period more
remarkable than any, I will venture to say, in the annals of mankind.
I ;un not thinking of the rise and fall of Empires, the change of dynasties,
the establishment of Governments. I am thinking of those revolutions
of science which h.m- h;ul much more effect than any political causes,
which have changed the position ami prospects of m inkind more than all
the conquests and all the codes and all the legislators that ever lived."*
* Nature, November 27, ^~'->- vol. i\. p. 71.
HE
UNIVERSITY
174 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
The progress of science, indeed, brings in many con-
siderations which are momentous in relation to the life of
any limited community any one nation. One of these
considerations to which attention is now being greatly
drawn is that a relative decline in national wealth derived
from industries must follow a relative neglect of scientific
education.
It was the late Prince Consort who first emphasised this
when he came here fre : sh from the University of Bonn.
Hence the " Prince Consort's Committee," which led
to the foundation of the College of Chemistry and after-
wards of the Science and Art Department. From
that time to this the warnings of our men of science have
become louder and more urgent in each succeeding year.
But this is not all ; the commercial output of one country
in one century as compared with another is not alone in
question ; the acquirement of the scientific spirit and a
knowledge and utilisation of the forces of Nature are very
much further reaching in their effects on the progress
and decline of nations than is generally imagined.
Britain in the middle of the last century was certainly
the country which gained most by the advent of science,
for she was then in full possession of those material gifts
of Nature, coal and iron, the combined winning and
utilisation of which, in the production of machinery and
in other ways, soon made her the richest country in the
world, the seat and throne of invention and manufacture,
as Mr. Carnegie has called her. Being the great producers
and exporters of all kinds of manufactured goods, we
became eventually, with our iron ships, the great carriers,
and hence the supremacy of our mercantile marine and
our present command of the sea.
INFLUENCE
The most fundamental change wrought by the early
applications of science was in relation to producing and
carrying power. With the winning of mineral wealth
and the production of machinery in other countries,
and cheap and rapid transit between nations, our superi-
ority as depending upon our first use of vast material
resources was reduced. Science, which is above all things
cosmopolitan planetary, not national internationalises
such resources at once. In every market of the world
" things of beauty, things of use,
Which one fair planet can produce,
Brought from under every star,"
were soon to be found.
Hence the first great effect of the general progress of
science was relatively to diminish the initial supremacy
of Britain due to the first use of material resources, which
indeed was the real source of our national wealth and
place among the nations.
The unfortunate thing was that, while the foundations
of our superiority depending upon our material resources
were being thus sapped by a cause which was beyond our
control, our statesmen and our Universities were blind
leaders of the blind, and our other asset, our mental re-
sources, which was within our control, was culpably
neglected.
So little did the bulk of our statesmen know of the part
science was playing in the modern world and of the real
basis of the nation's activities that they imagined political
and fiscal problems to be the only matters of importance.
Nor, indeed, are we very much better off to-day. In the
important discussions recently raised by Mr. Chamber-
lain next to nothing lias been said of the effect of the
176 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
progress of science on prices. The whole course of the
modern world is attributed to the presence or absence
of taxes on certain commodities in certain countries. The
fact that the great fall in the price of food-stuffs in Eng-
land did not come till some thirty or forty years after the
removal of the corn duty between 1847 and 1849 gives
them no pause ; for them new inventions, railways and
steamships are negligible quantities ; the vast increase
in the world's wealth, in Free Trade and Protected coun-
tries alike, comes merely, according to them, in response
to some political shibboleth.
We now know, from what has occurred in other States,
that if our Ministers had been more wise and our Univer-
sities more numerous and efficient, our mental resources
would have been developed by improvements in educa-
tional method, by the introduction of science into schools,
and, more important than all the rest, by the teaching
of science by experiment, observation and research, and
not from books. It is because this was not done that we
have fallen behind other nations in properly applying
science to industry, so that our applications of science to
industry are relatively less important than they were.
But this is by no means all ; we have lacked the strengthen-
ing of the national life produced by fostering the scientific
spirit among all classes and along all lines of the nation's
activity ; many of the responsible authorities know little
and care less about science ; we have not learned
that it is the duty of a State to organise its forces as
carefully for peace as for war ; that Universities and
other teaching centres are as important as battleships
or big battalions ; are, in fact, essential parts of a
modern State's machinery, and, as such, to be equally
INFLUENCE OF BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY. 177
aided and as efficiently organised to secure its future
well-being.
Now the objects of the British Association as laid down
by its founders seventy -two years ago are " To give a
stronger impulse and a more systematic direction to
scientific inquiry to promote the intercourse of those
who cultivate science in different parts of the British
Empire with one another and with foreign philosophers
to obtain a more general attention to the objects of
science and a removal of any disadvantages of a public
kind which impede its progress."
In the main, my predecessors in this Chair, to which
you have done me the honour to call me, have dealt, and
with great benefit to science, with the objects first-named.
But at a critical time like the present I find it impera-
tive to depart from the course so generally followed by
my predecessors and to deal with the last object named,
for unless by some means or other we " obtain a more
general attention to the objects of science and a removal
of any disadvantages of a public kind which impede its
progress," we shall suffer in competition with other com-
munities in which science is more generally utilised for
the purposes of the national life.
The Struggle for Existence in Modern Communities.
Some years ago, in discussing the relations of scientific
i ruction to our industries, Huxley pointed out that
we were in presence of a new " struggle for existence,"
struggle which, once commenced, must go on until only
':lir fittest survives.
It is a struggle between organised species nations
not between individuals or any class of individuals. It
M
178 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
is, moreover, a struggle in which science and brains take
the place of swords and sinews, on which depended the
result of those conflicts which, up to the present, have
determined the history and fate of nations. The school,
the University, the laboratory and the workshop are the
battlefields of this new warfare.
But it is evident that if this, or anything like it, be true,
our industries cannot be involved alone ; the scientific
spirit, brain-power, must not be limited to the workshop
if other nations utilise it in all branches of their administra-
tion and executive.
It is a question of an important change of front. It is
a question of finding a new basis of stability for the Empire
in face of new conditions. I am certain that those familiar
with the present state of things will acknowledge that the
Prince of Wales's call, c Wake up,' applies quite as much
to the members of the Government as it does to the leaders
of industry.
What is wanted is a complete organisation of the re-
sources of the nation, so as to enable it best to face all the
new problems which the progress of science, combined
with the ebb and flow of population and other factors in
international competition, are ever bringing before us.
Every Minister, every public department, are involved ;
and this being so, it is the duty of the whole nation-
King, Lords and Commons to do what is necessary
to place our scientific institutions on a proper footing in
order to enable us to " face the music," whatever the
future may bring. The idea that science is useful only
to our industries comes from want of thought. If any-
one is under the impression that Britain is only suffering at
present from the want of the scientific spirit among our
INFLUENCE OF BRAIN-POWER n\ HTSToKV. 179
industrial classes, and that those employed in the State
service possess adequate brain-power and grip of the con-
ditions of the modern world into which science so largely
enters, let him read the Report of the Royal Commission
on the War in South Africa. There he will see how the
whole " system " employed was, in Sir Henry Bracken -
bury's words applied to a part of it, " unsuited to the re-
quirements of an army which is maintained to enable us to
make war" Let him read also in the Address of the
President of the Society of Chemical Industry what
drastic steps had to be taken by Chambers of Commerce
and " a quarter of a million of working-men " to get the
Patent Law Amendment Act into proper shape in spite of
all the advisers and officials of the Board of Trade. Very
few people realise the immense number of scientific
problems the solution of which is required for the State
service. The nation itself is a gigantic workshop ; and the
more our rulers and legislators, administrators and execu-
tive officers possess the scientific spirit, the more the rule
of thumb is replaced in the State service by scientific
methods, the more able shall we be, thus armed at all
points, to compete successfully with other countries along
all lines of national as well as of commercial activity.
It is obvious that the power of a nation for war, in
men and arms and ships, is one thing ; its power in the
peace struggles to which I have referred is another. In
the latter the source and standard of national efficiency
are entirely changed. To meet war conditions, there must
be equality or superiority in battleships and army corps.
To meet the new peace conditions, there must be equality
-uperiority in Universities, scientific organisation and
rything which conduces to greater brain-power.
M2
180 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
Our Industries are Suffering in the Present International
Competition.
The present condition of the nation, so far as its in-
dustries are concerned, is as well known, not only to the
Prime Minister, but to other political leaders in and out
of the Cabinet, as it is to you and to me. Let me refer
to two speeches delivered by Lord Rosebery and Mr.
Chamberlain on two successive days in January 1901.
Lord Rosebery spoke as follows :
"... The war I regard with apprehension is the war of trade which
is unmistakably upon us. ... When I look round me I cannot blind
my eyes to the fact that, so far as we can predict anything of the twen-
tieth century on which we have now entered, it is that it will be one of
acutest international conflict in point of trade. We were the first
nation of the modern world to discover that trade was an absolute
necessity. For that we were nicknamed a nation of shopkeepers ; but
now every nation wishes to be a nation of shopkeepers too, and I am
bound to say that when we look at the character of some of these
nations, and when we look at the intelligence of their preparations,
we may well feel that it behoves us not to fear, but to gird up our loins
in preparation for what is before us."
Mr. Chamberlain's views were stated in the following
words :
" I do not think it is necessary for me to say anything as to the
urgency and necessity of scientific training. ... It is not too much to
say that the existence of this country, as the great commercial nation,
depends upon it. ... It depends very much upon what we are doing
now, at the beginning of the twentieth century, whether at its end we
shall continue to maintain our supremacy or even equality with our
great commercial and manufacturing rivals."
All this refers to our industries. We are suffering
because trade no longer follows the flag as in the old days,
but because trade follows the brains, and our manu-
facturers are too apt to be careless in securing them. In
one chemical establishment in Germany 400 doctors of
INFLUENCE OF BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY. 181
>ience, the best the universities there can turn out,
ive been employed at different times in late years. In
the United States the most successful students in the
higher teaching centres are snapped up the moment they
have finished their course of training, and put into charge
of large concerns, so that the idea has got abroad that
youth is the password of success in American industry.
It has been forgotten that the latest product of the highest
scientific education must necessarily be young, and that
it is the training and not the age which determines his
employment. In Britain, on the other hand, apprentices
who can pay high premiums are too often preferred to
those who are well educated, and the old rule-of-thumb
processes are preferred to new developments a con-
irvatism too often depending upon the master's own
it of knowledge.
I should not be doing my duty if I did not point out
tat the defeat of our industries one after another, con-
cerning which both Lord Rosebery and Mr. Chamberlain
express their anxiety, is by no means the only thing
re have to consider. The matter is not one which con-
our industrial classes only, for knowledge must be
pursued for its own sake ; and since the full life of a
nation with a constantly increasing complexity, not only
of industrial, but of high national aims, depends upon the
tiversal presence of the scientific spirit in other words,
rain-power our whole national life is involved.
e Necessity for a Body deeding with the Organisation of
Science.
The present awakening in relation to the nation's real
needs is l.nuvly due to the warnings of men of science.
182 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
But Mr. Balfour's terrible Manchester picture of our
present educational condition* shows that the warning,
which has been going on now for more than fifty years,
has not been forcible enough ; but if my contention that
other reorganisations besides that of our education are
needed is well founded, and if men of science are to act the
part of good citizens in taking their share in endeavouring
to bring about a better state of things, the question arises,
Has the neglect of their warnings so far been due to the
way in which these have been given ?
Lord Rosebery, in the address to a Chamber of Com-
merce from which I have already quoted, expressed his
opinion that such bodies do not exercise so much
influence as might be expected of them. But if
commercial men do not use all the power their organisa-
tion provides, do they not by having built up such
an organisation put to shame us students of science,
who are still the most disorganised members of the
community ?
Here, in my opinion, we have the real reason why the
scientific needs of the nation fail to command the atten-
tion either of the public or of successive Governments.
At present, appeals on this or on that behalf are the
appeals of individuals ; science has no collective voice on
the larger national questions ; there is no organised body
which formulates her demands.
During many years it has been part of my duty to con-
sider such matters, and I have been driven to the con-
clusion that our great crying need is to bring about an
* " The existing educational system of this country is chaotic, is ineffectual, is
utterly behind the age, makes us the laughing-stock of every advanced nation in
Europe and America, puts us behind, not only our American cousins, but the
(lerman and the Frenchman and the Italian." The Times, October 15, 1902.
;RAIN-POWER ON
>rganisation of men of science and all interested in science
similar to those which prove so effective in other branches
of human activity. For the last few years I have dreamt
of a Chamber, Guild, League, call it what you will, with
a wide and large membership, which should give us what,
my opinion, is so urgently needed. Quite recently I
:etched out such an organisation, but what was my
itonishment to find that I had been forestalled, and by
ie founders of the British Association.
The British Association such a Body.
At the commencement of this Address I pointed out
that one of the objects of the Association, as stated by
its founders, was " to obtain a more general attention to
Pe objects of science and a removal of any disadvantages
a public kind which impede its progress."
Everyone connected with the British Association from
its beginning may be congratulated upon the magnificent
r ay in which the other objects of the Association have
jen carried out ; but as one familiar with the association
)r the last forty years I cannot but think that the object
which I have specially referred has been too much
overshadowed by the work done in connection with the
others.
A careful study of the early history of the Association
me to the belief that the function I am now dwelling
was strongly in the minds of the founders ; but be this
it may, let me point out how admirably the organisa-
:ion is framed to enable men of science to influence public
opinion and so to bring pressure to bear upon Govern-
ments which follow public opinion. (1) Unlike all the
other chief metropolitan .< inties, its outlook is not limited
184 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
to any branch or branches of science. (2) We have
a wide and numerous fellowship, including both the
leaders and the lovers of science, in which all branches of
science are and always have been included with the utmost
catholicity a condition which renders strong committees
possible on any subject. (3) An annual meeting at a
time when people can pay attention to the deliberations,
and when the newspapers can print reports. (4) The
possibility of beating up recruits and establishing local
committees in different localities, even in the King's
dominions beyond the seas, since the place of meeting
changes from year to year, and is not limited to these
islands.
We not only, then, have a scientific Parliament com-
petent to deal with all matters, including those of national
importance, relating to science, but machinery for in-
fluencing all new councils and committees dealing with
local matters, the functions of which are daily becoming
more important.
The machinery might consist of our Corresponding
Societies. We already have affiliated to us seventy
societies with a membership of 25,000. Were this num-
ber increased so as to include every scientific society
metropolitan and provincial, in the Empire, we might
eventually hope for a membership of half a million.
I am glad to know that the Council is fully alive to the
importance of giving a greater impetus to the work of the
corresponding societies. During this year a committee
was appointed to deal with the question ; and later still,
after this committee had reported, a conference was
held between this committee and the Corresponding
Societies' Committee to consider the suggestions made,
,UENCE OF BRAIN-POWER OK HISTORY, l!
some of which will be gathered from the following ex-
tract :
"In view of the increasing importance of science to the nation at
large, your committee desire to call the attention of the Council to the
fact that in the corresponding societies the British Association has
gathered in the various centres represented by these societies practically
all the scientific activity of the provinces. The number of members
and associates at present on the list of the corresponding societies
approaches 25,000, and no organisation is in existence anywhere in the
country better adapted than the British Association for stimulating,
encouraging and co-ordinating all the work being carried on by the
seventy societies at present enrolled. Your committee are of opinion
that further encouragement should be given to these societies and
their individual working members by every means within the power
of the Association ; and with the object of keeping the corresponding
societies in more permanent touch with the Association they suggest
than an official invitation on behalf of the Council be addressed to the
societies, through the Corresponding Societies' Committee, asking them
to appoint standing British Association sub-committees, to be elected
by themselves, with the object of dealing with all those subjects of
investigation common to their societies and to the British Association
committees, and to look after the general interests of science and
scientific education throughout the provinces and provincial centres. .
" Your committee desire to lay special emphasis on the necessity for
the extension of the scientific activity of the corresponding societies and
the expert knowledge of many of their members in the direction of
scientific education. They are of opinion that immense benefit would
a i vriie to the country if the corresponding societies would keep this
requirement especially in view with the object of securing adequate
representation for scientific education on the Education Committees
nmv IHMMJJ appointed under the new Act. The educational section of the
iation lnivii)L r been but recently added, the corresponding societies
haveasyel not lid much opportunity for taking part in this branch of
the A<^>ci. it imi's work ; ami in view of the re-organisation in education
now j^oin^ on all over the country your committee are of opinion that no
more opportune time is likely to occur for the influence of scientific
organisations to make itself felt as a real factor in national educa-
. . ."
I believe that if these suggestions or anything like
tern for some better way may be found on inquiry
186 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
are accepted, great good to science throughout the Em-
pire will come. Rest assured that sooner or later such
a Guild will be formed, because it is needed. It is for
you to say whether it shall be, or form part of, the British
Association. We in this Empire certainly need to orga-
nise science as much as in Germany they find the need
to organise a navy. The German Navy League, which
has branches even in our Colonies, already has a member-
ship of 630,000 and its income is nearly 20,000 a year.
A British Science League of 500,000 with a sixpenny
subscription would give us 12,500 a year, quite enough
to begin with.
I for one believe that the British Association would
be a vast gainer by such an expansion of one of its
existing functions. Increased authority and prestige would
follow its increased utility. The meetings would possess
a new interest ; there would be new subjects for reports ;
missionary work less needed than formerly would be
replaced by efforts much more suited to the real wants
of the time. This magnificent, strong and complicated
organisation would become a living force, working
throughout the year instead of practically lying idle,
useless and rusting for fifty -one weeks out of the fifty-
two so far as its close association with its members is
concerned.
If this suggestion in any way commends itself to you,
then when you begin your work in your sections or
General Committee see to it that a body is appointed
to inquire how the thing can be done. Remember that
the British Association will be as much weakened by
the creation of a new body to do the work I have shown
to have been in the minds of its founders as I believe
INFLUENCE OF BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY. 187
it will be strengthened by becoming completely effec-
tive in every one of the directions they indicated, and
for which effectiveness we, their successors, are indeed
responsible. The time is appropriate for such a rein-
forcement of one of the wings of our organisation, for
we have recently included Education among our sections.
There is another matter I should like to see referred
tthe committee I have spoken of, if it please you to
point it. The British Association which, as I have
eady pointed out, is now the chief body in the Empire
wiiich deals with the totality of science is, I believe,
the only organisation of any consequence which is with-
out a charter, and which has not His Majesty the King
as patron.
The First Work of such an Organisation.
I suppose it is my duty, after I have suggested the
need of organisation, to tell you my personal opinion as
to the matters where we suffer most in consequence of
our lack of organisation at the present time.
Our position as a nation, our success as merchants,
are in peril chiefly dealing with preventable causes
because of our lack of completely efficient Universities
and our neglect of research. This research has a double
end. A professor who is not learning cannot teach pro-
perly or arouse enthusiasm in his students ; while a
student of anything who is unfamiliar with research
methods and without that training which research brings,
will not be in the best position to apply his knowledge
in aftrr-lilV. Krom inflect of research comes imperfect
education and a small output of new applications and
new knowledge to r< 'invigorate our industries. From
188 HDUOATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
imperfect education comes the unconcern touching
scientific matters and the too frequent absence of the
scientific spirit in the nation generally, from the Court
to the Parish Council.
I propose to deal as briefly as I can with each of these
points.
Universities.
I have shown that, so far as our industries are con-
cerned, the cause of our failure has been run to earth ;
it is fully recognised that it arises from the insufficiency
of our Universities both in numbers and efficiency, so
that not only our captains of industry, but those. em-
ployed in the nation's work generally, do not secure a
training similar to that afforded by other nations. No
additional endowment of primary, secondary or tech-
nical instruction will mend matters. This is not merely
the opinion of men of science ; our great towns know it,
our ministers know it.
It is sufficient for me to quote Mr. Chamberlain :
" It is not everyone who can, by any possibility, go forward into the
higher spheres of education ; but it is from those who do that we have to
look for the men who in the future will carry high the flag of this country
in commercial, scientific and economic competition with other nations.
At the present moment I believe there is nothing more important than to
s ipply the deficiencies which separate us from those with whom we are in
the closest competition. In Germany, in America, in our own colony of
Canada and in Australia, the higher education of the people has more
support from the Government, is carried further, than it is here in the
Old Country ; and the result is that in every profession, in every
industry, you find the places taken by men and by women who have had
a university education. And I would like to see the time in this country
when no man should have a chance for any occupation of the better
kind, either in our factories, our workshops or our counting-houses,
who could not show proof that in the course of his university career he
[-POWER
had deserved the position that was offered to him. \Vhat is it that
makes a country ? Of course you may say, and you would be quite
right, " The general qualities of the people, their resolution, their
intelligence, their pertinacity and many other good qualities." Yes ;
but that is not all, and it is not the main creative feature of a great
nation. The greatness of a nation is made by its greatest men. It is
those we want to educate. It is to those who are able to go, it may be,
from the very lowest steps in the ladder, to men who are able to devote
their time to higher education, that we have to look to continue the
position which we now occupy as at all events one of the greatest
nations on the face of the earth. And, feeling as I do on these subjects,
you will not be surprised if I say that I think the time is coming when
Governments will give more attention to this matter, and perhaps find
a little more money to forward its interests.*
Our conception of a University has changed. Univer-
sity education is no longer regarded as the luxury of the
rich, which concerns only those who can afford to pay
heavily for it. The Prime Minister in a recent speech,
while properly pointing out that the collective effect of our
public and secondary schools upon British character
cannot be overrated, frankly acknowledged that the boys
of seventeen or eighteen who have to be educated in them
" do not care a iarthing about the world they live in except
in so far as it concerns the cricket-field or the football-
field or the river." On this ground they are not to be
taught science ; and hence, when they proceed to the
University, their curriculum is limited to subjects which
were better taught before the modern world existed, or
even Galileo was born. But the science which these
young gentlemen neglect, with the full approval of their
teachers, on their way through the school and the Univer-
sity to politics, the Civil Service or the management of
commercial concerns, is now one of the great necessities
of a nation ; and our Universities must become as much
* The Times, November 6, 1902,
190 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
the insurers of the future progress as battleships are the
insurers of the present power of States. In other words,
University competition between States is now as potent
as competition in building battleships ; and it is on this
ground that our University conditions become of the
highest national concern, and therefore have to be referred
to here, and all the more because our industries are not
alone in question.
Why we have not more Universities.
Chief among the causes which have brought us to the
terrible condition of inferiority as compared with other
nations in which we find ourselves are our carelessness in
the matter of education and our false notions of the
limitations of State functions in relation to the conditions
of modern civilisation.
Time was when the Navy was largely a matter of private
and local effort. William the Conqueror gave privileges
to the Cinque Ports on the condition that they furnished
fifty-two ships when wanted. In the time of Edward III.,
of 730 sail engaged in the siege of Calais 705 were " people's
ships." All this has passed away ; for our first line of
defence we no longer depend on private and local effort.
Time was when not a penny was spent by the State on
elementary education. Again, we no longer depend upon
private and local effort. The Navy and primary educa-
tion are now recoginsed as properly calling upon the
public for the necessary financial support. But when we
pass from primary to University education, instead of
State endowment we find State neglect ; we are in a
region where it is nobody's business to see that anything
is done,
0]
We in Great Britain have thirteen Universities compet-
ing with 134 State and privately endowed in the United
States and twenty-two State endowed in Germany. I
leave other countries out of consideration for lack of time,
and I omit all reference to higher institutions for technical
training, of which Germany alone possesses nine of Uni-
versity rank, because they are less important ; they in-
struct rather than educate, and our want is education.
The German State gives to one University more than the
British Government allows to all the Universities and
University Colleges in England, Ireland, Scotland and
Wales put together. These are the conditions which
gulate the production of brain-power in the United
ates, Germany and Britain respectively, and the excuse
of the Government is that this is a matter for private
effort. Do not our Ministers of State know that other
civilised countries grant efficient State aid, and, further,
that private effort has provided in Great Britain less
than 10 per cent, of the sum thus furnished in the United
States in addition to State aid ? Are they content that
we should go under in the great struggle of the modern
world because the Ministries of other States are wiser,
and because the individual citizens of another country
are more generous, than our own ?
If we grant that there was some excuse for the State's
neglect so long as the h : gher teaching dealt only with words,
and books alone had to be provided (for the streets of
London and Paris have been used as class-rooms at a
pinch), it must not be forgotten that during the last
hundred years not only has knowledge been enormously
increased, but things have replaced words, and fully
i|iiippod laboratories must take the place of books and
192 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
class-rooms if University training worthy of the name
is to be provided. There is much more difference in size
and kind between an old and a new University than there
is between the old caravel and a modern battleship, and
the endowments must follow suit.
What are the facts relating to private endowment in
this country ? In spite of the munificence displayed by
a small number of individuals in some localities, the truth
must be spoken. In depending in our country upon this
form of endowment we are trusting to a broken reed. If
we take the twelve English University Colleges, the fore-
runners of Universities unless we are to perish from lack of
knowledge, we find that private effort during sixty years has
found less than 4,000,000 ; that is, 2,000,000 for build-
ings, and 40,000 a year income. This gives us an average
of 166,000 for buildings, and 3,300 for yearly income.
What is the scale of private effort we have to compete
with in regard to the American Universities ?
In the United States, during the last few years, Univer-
sities and colleges have received more than 40,000,000
from this source alone ; private effort supplied nearly
7,000,000 in the years 1898-1900.
Next consider the amount of State aid to Universities
afforded in Germany. The buildings of the new Univer-
sity of Strassburg have already cost nearly 1,000,000 ;
that is, about as much as has yet been found by private
effort for buildings in Manchester, Liverpool, Birming-
ham, Bristol, Newcastle and Sheffield. The Government
annual endowment of the same German University *s
more than 49,000.
This is what private endowment does for us in England,
against State endowment in Germany.
INFLUENCE OF BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY. 193
But the State does really concede the principle ; its
present contribution to our Universities and colleges
amounts to 155,600 a year. No capital sum, however,
is taken for buildings. The State endowment of the
University of Berlin in 1891-1892 amounted to 168,777.
When, then, we consider the large endowments of Uni-
versity education both in the United States and Germany,
it is obvious that State aid only can make any valid
competition possible with either. The more we study the
facts, the more statistics are gone into, the more do we
find that we, to a large extent, lack both of the sources
of endowment upon one or other, or both, of which other
nations depend. We are between two stools, and the
prospect is hopeless without some drastic changes. And
first among these, if we intend to get out of the present
Slough of Despond, must be the giving up of the idea of
relying upon private effort.
That we lose most where the State does least is known
to Mr. Chamberlain, for in his speech, to which I have
referred, on the University of Birmingham, he said :
" As the importance of the aim we are pursuing becomes more and
more impressed upon the minds of the people, we may find that we
shall be more generously treated by the State."
Later still, on the occasion of a visit to University
College School, Mr. Chamberlain spoke as follows :
" When we are spending, as we are, many millions I think it is
13,000,000/. a year on primary dim -at ion. it certainly seems as if we
ini^ht add a little more, even a few tens of thousands, to what we give to
university and secondary education."*
To compete on equal grounds with other nations we
must have more Universities. But this is not all we
* The Times, November 6, 1902.
N
194 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
want a far better endowment of all the existing ones, not
forgetting better opportunities for research on the part of
both professors and students. Another crying need is
that of more professors and better pay. Another is the
reduction of fees ; they should be reduced to the level
existing in those countries which are competing with us
to, say, one-fifth of their present rates, so as to enable
more students in the secondary and technical schools to
complete their education.
In all these ways facilities would be afforded for
providing the highest instruction to a much greater
number of students. At present there are almost
as many professors and instructors in the Universities
and colleges of the United States as there are day
students in the Universities and colleges of the United
Kingdom.
Men of science, our leaders of industry and the chiefs
of our political parties all agree that our present want of
higher education in other words, properly equipped
Universities is heavily handicapping us in the present
race for commercial supremacy, because it provides a
relatively inferior brain-power, which is leading to a rela-
tively reduced national income.
The facts show that in this country we cannot depend
upon private effort to put matters right. How about local
effort ?
Anyone who studies the statistics of modern munici-
palities will see that it is impossible for them to raise
rates for the building and upkeep of Universities.
The buildings of the most modern University in Ger-
many have cost 1,000,000. For upkeep the yearly sums
found, chiefly by the State, for German Universities of
INFLUENCE OF BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY. 195
different grades, taking the incomes of seven out of the
r enty-two Universities as examples, are :
Berlin - 130,000
First Class
Second Class
Third Class
Fourth Class
i
Gdttfflgenj
I Ivouigsberg^
1 Strassburg j
(Heidelberg)
\ Marburg /
56.000
37000
Thus, if Leeds, which is to have a University, is content
ith the fourth class German standard, a rate must be
levied of 7d. in the for yearly expenses, independent of
all buildings. But the facts are that our towns are already
at the breaking strain. During the last fifty years, in
spite of enormous increases in rateable values, the rates
ve gone up from about 2s. to about 7s. in the for real
purposes. But no University can be a merely local
titution.
How to get more Universities.
What, then, is to be done ? Fortunately, we have a
precedent admirably in point, the consideration of which
may help us to answer this question.
I have pointed out that in old days our Navy was chiefly
provided by local and private effort. Fortunately for us
those days have passed away ; but some twenty years
jo, in spite of a large expenditure, it began to be felt
those who knew, that in consequence of the increase
>f foreign navies our sea-power was threatened, as now,
in consequence of the increase of foreign Universities, our
brain-power is threatened.
The nation slowly woke up to find that its enormous
)inmerce was no longer insured at sea, that in relation
196 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
to foreign navies our own had been suffered to dwindle
to such an extent that it was no longer capable of doing
the duty which the nation expected of it even in times of
peace. At first this revelation was received with a shrug
of incredulity, and the peace-at-any-price party denied
that anything was needed ; but a great teacher arose ;*
as the facts were inquired into, the suspicion changed into
an alarm ; men of all parties saw that something must be
done. Later the nation was thoroughly aroused, and with
an universal agreement the principle was laid down that,
cost what it might to enforce our sea -power, our Navy
must be made and maintained of a strength greater than
those of any two possibly contending Powers. After
establishing this principle, the next thing to do was to
give effect to it. What did the nation do after full dis-
cussion and inquiry ? A Bill was brought in in 1888,
and a sum of 21,500,000 was voted in order, during the
next five years, to inaugurate a large ship-building pro-
gramme, so that Britain and Britain's commerce might
be guarded on the high seas in any event.
Since then we have spent 120,000,000 on new ships,
and this year we spend still more millions on still more
new ships. If these prove insufficient to safeguard our
sea-power, there is no doubt that the nation will increase
them, and I have not heard that anybody has suggested
an appeal to private effort.
How, then, do we stand with regard to Universities,
recognising them as the chief producers of brain-power
and therefore the equivalents of battleships in relation to
sea-power ? Do their numbers come up to the standard
* Captain Mahan, of the U.S. Navy, whose book, " On the Influence of Sea-
power on History," has suggested the title of my address.
INFLUENCE OF BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY. 197
jtablished by the Admiralty principle to which I have
iferred ? Let us attempt to get a rough-and-ready
imate of our educational position by counting Univer-
ities as the Admiralty counts battleships. I say rough-
and-ready, because we have other helps to greater brain
power to consider besides Universities, as the Admiralty
has other ships to consider besides ironclads.
In the first place, let us inquire if they are equal in num-
ber to those of any two nations commercially competing
with us.
In the United Kingdom we had until quite recently
thirteen.* Of these, one is only three years old as a
teaching University, and another is still merely an examin-
ing board.
In Germany there are twenty-two Universities ; in
France, under recent legislation, fifteen ; in Italy, twenty-
one. It is difficult to give the number in the United
States, because it is clear, from the tables given in the
Report of the Commissioner of Education, that some
colleges are more important than some Universities, and
both give the degree of Ph.D. But of Universities in title
we have 134. Among these, there are forty-six each with
more than fifty professors and instructors, and thirteen
of these with more than 150. I will take that figure.
Suppose we consider the United States and Germany^
our chief commercial competitors, and apply the Admiralty
principle. We should require, allowing for population,
eight additional Universities at the very lowest estimate.
We see, then, that instead of having Universities
* These are Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Victoria, Wales, Birmingham,
London, St. Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Dublin and Royal
University.
198 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
equalling in number those of two of our chief competitors
together, they are by no means equal to those of either
of them singly.
After this statement of the facts, anyone who has belief
in the importance of higher education will have no difficulty
in understanding the origin of the present condition of
British industry and its constant decline, first in one
direction and then in another, since the tremendous efforts
made in the United States and Germany began to take
effect.
If, indeed, there be anything wrong about the compari-
son, the error can only arise from one of two sources either
the Admiralty is thoughtlessly and wastefully spending
money, or there is no connection whatever between the
higher intelligence and the prosperity of a nation. I have
already referred to the views of Mr. Chamberlain and
Lord Rosebery on this point ; we know what Mr. Cham-
berlain has done at Birmingham ; we know the strenuous
efforts made by the commercial leaders of Manchester
and Liverpool ; we know, also, the opinion of men of
science.
If while we spend so freely to maintain our sea-power
our export of manufactured articles is relatively reduced
because our competitors beat us in the markets of the
world, what is the end of the vista thus opened up to us ?
A Navy growing stronger every year and requiring larger
votes to guard our commerce and communications, and
a vanishing quantity of commerce to guard a reduced
national income to meet an increasing taxation !
The pity is that our Government has considered sea-
power alone ; that while so completely guarding our
commerce it has given no thought to one of the main con-
INFLUENCE OF BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY. 199
ditions on which its production and increase depend. A
glance could have shown that other countries were build-
ing Universities even faster than they were building
battleships ; were, in fact, considering brain-power first
and sea -power afterwards.
Surely it is my duty as your President to point out the
danger ahead, if such ignoring of the true situation should
be allowed to continue. May I express a hope that at last,
in Mr. Chamberlain's words, " The time is coming when
Governments will give more attention to this matter " ?
What will they cost ?
The comparison shows that we want eight new Univer-
sities, some of which, of course, will be colleges promoted
to University rank and fitted to carry on University work
Three of them are already named : Manchester, Liver-
pool, Leeds.
Let us take this number and deal with it on the battle-
ship condition, although a modern University on American
or German models will cost more to build than a battle-
ship.
If our present University shortage be dealt with on
battleship conditions, to correct it we should expend at
least 8,000,000 for new construction, and for the pay-
sheet we should have to provide (8 x 50,000) 400,000
yearly for personnel and up-keep ; for it is of no use to
build either ships or Universities without manning them.
Let us say, roughly, capitalising the yearly payment at
2 per cent., 24,000,000.
At this stage it is important to inquire whether this
sum, arrived at by analogy merely, has any relation to our
real University needs.
200 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
I have spent a year in making inquiries, as full as I could
make them, of friends conversant with the real present
needs of each of the Universities, old and new. I have
obtained statistics which would fill a volume, and person-
ally I believe that this sum at least is required to bring
our University system up to anything like the level which
is insisted upon both in the United States and in Ger-
many. Even Oxford, our oldest University, will still con-
tinue to be a mere bundle of colleges unless 3,000,000
are provided to enable the University, properly so called,
to take her place among her sisters of the modern world ;
and Sir Oliver Lodge, the Principal of our very youngest
University, Birmingham, has shown in detail how
5,000,000 can be usefully and properly applied in that one
locality to utilise for the good of the nation the enthusiasm
and scientific capacity which are only waiting for ade-
quate opportunity of development.
How is this money to be raised ? I reply, without
hesitation, Duplicate the Navy Bill of 1888-1889 ; do at
once for brain-power what we so successfully did then for
sea-power.
Let 24,000,000 be set apart from one asset, our national
wealth, to increase the other, brain-power. Let it be
assigned and borrowed as it is wanted ; there will be a
capital sum for new buildings to be erected in the next
five or ten years, the interest of the remainder to go towards
increased annual endowments.
There need be no difficulty about allocating money to
the various institutions. Let each University make
up its mind as to which rank of the German Universi-
ties it wishes to emulate. When this claim has been
agreed to, the sums necessary to provide the buildings
INFLUENCE OF BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY. 201
d teaching staff of that class of University should
granted without demur.
It is the case of battleships over again, and money need
ot be spent more freely in one case than in the other.
Let me at once say that this sum is not to be regarded
as practically gone when spent, as in the case of a short-
lived ironclad. It is a loan which will bear a high rate of
terest. This is not my opinion merely ; it is the opinion
f those concerned in great industrial enterprises and fully
alive to the origin and effects of the present condition
of things.
tl have been careful to point out that the statement
at our industries are suffering from our relative neglect
science does not rest on my authority. But if this
be true, then if our annual production is less by only
2,000,000 than it might have been, having 2,000,000
less to divide would be equivalent to our having 40,000,000
or 50,000,000 less capital than we should have had if we
had been more scientific.
Sir John Brunner, in a speech connected with the Liver-
pool School of Tropical Medicine, stated recently that if
we as a nation were now to borrow 10,000,000 in
order to help science by putting up buildings and
endowing professors, we should get the money back in the
course of a generation a hundredfold. He added that there
was no better investment for a business man than the en-
couragement of science, and that every penny he possessed
had come from the application of science to commerce.
According to Sir Robert Giffen, the United Kingdom
as a going concern was in 1901 worth 16,000,000,000.
Were we to put aside 24,000,000 for gradually organ-
ising, building, and endowing new Universities, and making
202 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
the existing ones more efficient we should still be worth
15,976,000,000 a property well worth defending by
all the means, and chief among these brain-power, we
can command.
If it be held that this, or anything like it, is too great
a price to pay for correcting past carelessness or stu-
pidity, the reply is that the 120^00,000 recently spent
on the Navy, a sum five times greater, has been spent
to correct a sleepy blunder, not one whit more inimical
to the future welfare of our country than that which has
brought about our present educational position. We
had not sufficiently recognised what other nations had
done in the way of ship -building, just as until now we
have not recognised what they have been doing in
University building.
Further, I am told that the sum of 24,000,000 is less
than half the amount by which Germany is yearly en-
riched by having improved upon our chemical indus-
tries, owing to our lack of scientific training. Many
other industries have been attacked in the same way
since ; but taking this one instance alone, if we had
spent this money fifty years ago, when the Prince Con-
sort first called attention to our backwardness, the
nation would now be much richer than it is, and would
have much less to fear from competition.
Suppose we were to set about putting our educational
house in order, so as to secure a higher quality and greater
quantity of brain-power, it would not be the first time
in history that this has been done. Both Prussia after
Jena and France after Sedan acted on the view :
" When land is gone and money spent,
Then learning is most excellent."
INFLUENCE OF BRAINPOWER ON HISTORY. 203
After Jena, which left Prussia a " bleeding and lacerated
mass," the King and his wise counsellors, among them
men who had gained knowledge from Kant, determined,
as they put it, 'to supply the loss of territory by intellec-
tual effort."
What did they do ? In spite of universal poverty,
three Universities, to say nothing of observatories and
other institutions, were at once founded, secondary edu-
cation was developed, and in a few years the mental
resources were so well looked after that Lord Palmer-
ston defined the kingdom in question as " a country of
dimmed professors."
After Sedan a battle, as Moltke told us, " won by
the schoolmaster " France made even more strenuous
efforts. The old University of France, with its " aca-
demies " in various places, was replaced by fifteen inde-
pendent Universities, in all of which are faculties of letters,
sciences, law and medicine.
The development of the University of Paris has been
truly marvellous. In 1897-8 there were 12,000 students,
and the cost was 200,000 a year.
But even more wonderful than these examples is the
" intellectual effort v made by Japan, not after a war,
but to prepare for one.
The question is, Shall we wait for a disaster
and then imitate Prussia and France ; or shall we
follow Japan and thoroughly prepare by u intellec-
tual effort " for the industrial struggle which lies
before us ?
Such an effort seems to me to be the first thing any
national or imperial scientific organisation should en-
deavour to bring about.
204 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
Research.
When dealing with our Universities I referred to the
importance of research, as it is now generally acknow-
ledged to be the most powerful engine of education that
we possess. But education, after all, is but a means to
the end, which, from the national point of view, is the
application of old and the production of new knowledge.
Its national importance apart from education s now
so generally recognised that in all civilised nations except
our own means of research are being daily more amply
provided for all students after they have passed through
their University career; and, more than this, for all
who can increase the country's renown or prosperity
by the making of new knowledge, upon which not only
commercial progress, but all intellectual advance must
depend.
I am so anxious that my statement of our pressing,
and indeed imperative, needs in this direction should
not be considered as resting upon the possibly interested
opinion of a student of science merely that I must trouble
you with still more quotations.
Listen to Mr. Balfour :
" I do not believe that any man who looks round the equipment of
universities or medical schools or other places of education can honestly
say in his heart that we have done enough to equip research with all the
costly armoury which research must have in these modern days. We,
the richest country in the world, lag behind Germany, France, Switzer-
land and Italy. Is it not disgraceful ? Are we too poor or are we too
stupid ? "*
It is imagined by many who have given no thought
to the matter that this research should be closely allied
with some application of science being utilised at the
* Nature, May 30, 1901,
IXKLl'KXt
H]
206
time. Nothing could be further from the truth ; nothing
could be more unwise than such a limitation.
Surely all the laws of Nature will be ultimately of
service, and therefore there is much more future help to
be got from a study of the unknown and the unused
than we can hope to obtain by continuing the study of
that which is pretty well known and utilised already.
It was a King of France, Louis XIV., who first com-
mended the study of the meme inutile. The history of
modern science shows us more and more as the years
roll on the necessity and advantage of such studies, and
therefore the importance of properly endowing them ;
for the production of new knowledge :'s a costly and
unremunerative pursuit.
(Years ago we had Faraday apparently wasting his
energies and time in playing with needles ; electricity now
fills the world. To-day men of science in all lands are
studying the emanations of radium ; no research could be
more abstract ; but who knows what advance in human
thought may follow or what gigantic world-transforming
superstructure may eventually be raised on the minute
foundation they are laying ?
If we so organise our teaching forces that we can use them
at all stages, from the gutter to the University, to sift out
for us potential Faradays to utilise the mental products
which otherwise would be wasted it is only by enabling
such men to continue their learning after their teaching
is over that we shall be able to secure the greatest advan-
tage which any educational system can afford.
It is now more than thirty years ago that my attention
was specially drawn to this question of the endowment
of research first, by conversations with M, Dumas, the
206 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
permanent secretary of the Academy of Sciences, who
honoured me by his friendship ; and, secondly, by my
association with Sir Benjamin Brodie and Dr. Appleton
in their endeavours to call attention to the matter in this
country. At that time a general scheme of endowment
suggested by Dumas was being carried out by Duruy.
This took the form of the " Ecole speciale des Hautes
Etudes " ; it was what our fellowship system was meant
to be an endowment of the research of post-graduate
students in each seat of learning. The French effort did
not begin then.
I may here tell, as it was told me by Dumas, the story
of Leon Foucault, whose many discoveries shed a glory on
France and revived French industry in many directions.*
In 1851, when Prince Napoleon was President of the
Republic, he sent for Dumas and some of his colleagues, and
told them that during his stay in England, and afterwards
in his study of the Great Exhibition of that year, he had
found there a greater industrial development than in
France, and more applications of science, adding that he
wished to know how such a state of things could be at
once remedied. The answer was that new applications
depended upon new knowledge, and that therefore the
most direct and immediate way was to find and encourage
men who were likely by research in pure science to pro-
duce this new knowledge. The Prince -President at once
asked for names ; that of Leon Foucault was the only
one mentioned during the first interview.
Some time afterwards to be exact, at about eleven in
the morning of December 2nd Dumas's servant informed
him that there was a gentleman in the hall named
* See Proc. R. S. vol. xvii. p. Ixxxiii.
,1^-POWER
Foucault, who wished to see him, and he added that he
appeared to be very ill. When shown into the study,
Foucault was too agitated to speak, and was blind with
tears. His reply to Dumas' s soothing questions was to take
from his pockets two rolls of banknotes, amounting to
200,000 francs, and place them on the table. Finally, he was
able to say that he had been with the Prince-President since
eight o'clock that morning, discussing the possible improve-
ment of French science and industry ; and that Napoleon had
finally given him the money, requesting him to do all in
his power to aid the State. Foucault ended by saying that,
on realising the greatness of the task thus imposed upon
him, his fears and feelings had got the better of him, for
the responsibility seemed more than he could bear.*
The movement in England to which I have referred
began in 1872, when a society for the organisation of
academical study was formed in connection with the
inquiry into the revenues of Oxford and Cambridge, and
there was a famous meeting at the Freemasons' Tavern,
Mark Pattison being in the chair. Brodie, Rolleston,
Carpenter, Burdon-Sanderson were among the speakers,
and the first resolution carried was, " That to have a class
of men whose lives are devoted to research is a national
object." The movement died in consequence of the want
of sympathy of the University authorities, f
In the year 1874 the subject was inquired into by the
* In onlt-r to show how history is written, what actually happened on a
fateful morning may he compand with the account ^iven hy Kin^lake : M I'rince
LouU nul- home ami \\cnt in out of si-ht. Then for the most part he remained
do>e shut up in the Klyscc. There, in ;m inner room, still decked in red
trousers, hut with his back io the daylight, they say he sat hent over a fireplace
for hours and hours together resting his elbows on his knees, and hurying his.
;u his hands." (.'/////'/,< Win-, vol. i. p. -_M:>.
Nee Xtifi'i-i , November and I >cceml.er. Is7-.
208 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
late Duke of Devonshire's Commission ; and after taking
much remarkable evidence, including that of Lord Salis-
bury, the Commission recommended to the Government
that the then grant of 1,000, which was expended, by
a committee appointed by the Royal Society, on instru-
ments needed in researches carried on by private
individuals, should be increased, so that personal grants
should be made. This recommendation was accepted and
acted on ; the grant was increased to 4,000, and finally
other societies were associated with the Royal Society
in its administration. The committee, however, was
timorous, possibly owing to the apathy of the Universities
and the general carelessness on such matters, and only one
personal grant was made ; the whole conception fell
through.
Meantime, however, opinion has become more educated
and alive to the extreme importance of research to the
nation, and in 1891 a suggestion was made to the Royal
Commission which administers the proceeds of the 1851
Exhibition that a sum of about 6,000 a year available
for scholarships should be employed in encouraging post-
graduate research throughout the whole Empire. As
what happened is told in the Memoirs of Lord Playfair,
it is not indiscreet in me to state that when I proposed
this new form of the endowment of research it would not
have surprised me if the suggestion had been declined.
It was carried through by Lord Playfair's enthusiastic
support. This system has been at work ever since, and the
good that has been done by it is now generally conceded.
It is a supreme satisfaction to me to know that in this
present year of grace the national importance of the study
pf the mcme inutile is more generally recognised than it was
INFLUENCE OF BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY. 209
t
during the times to which I have referred in my brief
survey ; and, indeed, we students are fortunate in having
on our side in this matter two members of His Majesty's
Government, who two years ago spoke with no uncertain
sound upon this matter :
" Do we lack the imagination required to show what these apparently
remote and abstract studies do for the happiness of mankind ? We can
appreciate that which obviously and directly ministers to human
advancement and felicity, but seem, somehow or another, to be deficient
in that higher form of imagination, in that longer sight, which sees in
studies which have no obvious, necessary or immediate result the
foundation of the knowledge which shall give far greater happiness to
mankind than anv immediate, material, industrial advancement can
possibly do ; and I fear, and greatly fear, that, lacking that imagination,
we have allowed ourselves to lag in the glorious race run now by civilised
countries in pursuit of knowledge, and we have permitted ourselves
so far to too large an extent to depend upon others for those additions to
our knowledge which surely we might have made for ourselves."*
' k 1 would remind you that all history shows that progress national
pro_L r ri'<> of everv kind depends upon certain individuals rather than
upon the mass. Whether you take religion, or literature, or political
L:O\ eminent, or art, or commerce, the new ideas, the great steps, have
been made by individuals of superior quality and genius, who have, as it
were, draped t ho, mass of the nation up one step to a higher level. So
it must be in regard to material progress. The position of the nation
to-day is due to the efforts of men like Watt and Arkwright, or, in our
own time, to the Armstrongs, the Whitworths, the Kelvins and the
Siemenses. These are the men, who, by their discoveries, by their
remarkable genius, have produced the ideas upon which others have
acted and which have permeated the whole mass of the nation and
affected the whole of its proceedings. Therefore what we have to do,
and this is our special task and object, is to produce more of these great
men."t
I finally come to the political importance of research.
A country's research is as important in the long run as its
battleships. The most eloquent teaching as to its national
Mr. r.ulfnur, Motor* M-'.v , ItMJl.
t Mr. Chamberlain The Times, January 18, 1901.
210 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
H
value we owe to Mr. Carnegie, for he has given the sum
of 2,000,000 to found a system of endowments, his chief
purpose being, in his own words, " to secure if possible for
the United States of America leadership in the domain
of discovery and the utilisation of new forces for the benefit
of man."
Here is a distinct challenge to Britain. Judging by
experience in this country, in spite of the magnificent
endowment of research by Mond and Lord Iveagh, the
only source of possible competition in the British interest
is the State, which certainly could not put the l/8,000th
part of the accumulated wealth of the country to better
use ; for without such help both our Universities and our
battleships will become of rapidly dwindling importance.
It is on this ground that I have included the importance
of endowing research among the chief points to which I
have been anxious to draw your attention.
The Need of a Scientific National Council.
In referring to the new struggle for existence among
civilised communities I pointed out that the solution of a
large number of scientific problems is now daily required
for the State service, and that in this and other ways the
source and standard of national efficiency have been
greatly changed.
Much evidence bearing upon the amount of scientific
knowledge required for the proper administration of the
public departments, and the amount of scientific work
done by and for the nation, was brought before the Royal
Commission on Science presided over by the late Duke of
Devonshire now more than a quarter of a century ago.
The Commission unanimously recommended that the
INFLUENPE OF BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY. 211
Stato should be aided by a scientific council in facing the
new problems constantly arising.
But while the home Government has apparently made
up its mind to neglect the advice so seriously given, it
should be a source of gratification to us all to know that
tli application of the resources of modern science to the
economic, industrial and agricultural development of
India has for many years engaged the earnest attention
of the Government of that country. The Famine Com-
missioners of 1878 laid much stress on the institution of
scientific inquiry and experiment designed to lead to the
gradual increase of the food-supply and to the greater
stability of agricultural outturn, while the experience of
recent years has indicated the increasing importance of the
study of the economic products and mineral-bearing tracts.
Lord Curzon has recently ordered the heads of the
various scientific departments to form a board, which shall
meet twice annually, to begin with, to formulate a
programme and to review past work. The board is also
to act as an advisory committee to the Government,*
providing among other matters for the proper co-ordina-
tion of all matters of scientific inquiry affecting India's
welfare.
Lord Curzon is to be warmly congratulated upon the
step he has taken, which is certain to bring benefit to our
great Dependency.
The importance of such a board is many times greater
at home, wit li BO many external as well as internal interests
to look after- problems common to peace and war, pro-
blem re(| Hiring the help of the economic as well as of the
)hvsical sciences.
>.|. lumber 4, 1902.
212 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
It may be asked, What is done in Germany, where
science is fostered and utilised far more than here ?
The answer is, There is such a council. I fancy, very
much like what our Privy Council once was. It consists
of representatives of the Ministry, the universities, the
industries and agriculture. It is small, consisting of
about a dozen members, consultative, and it reports direct
to the Emperor. It does for industrial war what military
and so-called defence councils do for national armaments ;
it considers everything relating to the use of brain-power in
peace from alterations in school regulations and the
organisation of the universities, to railway rates and
fiscal schemes, including the adjustment of duties. I am
informed that what this council advises, generally becomes
law.
It should be pretty obvious that a nation so provided
must have enormous chances in its favour. It is a ques-
tion of drilled battalions against an undisciplined army,
of the use of the scientific spirit as opposed to the hope
of " muddling through."
Mr. Haldane 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."
Without such a machinery as this, how can our Ministers
and our rulers be kept completely informed on a thousand
things of vital importance ? Why should our position
and requirements as an industrial and thinking nation
receive less attention from the authorities than the head-
dress of the Guards ? How, in the words of Lord Curzon,*
* The Times, September 30, 1902,
HISTORY.
can " the life and vigour of a nation be summed up before
the world in the person of its sovereign " if the national
organisation is so defective that it has no means of keeping
the head of the State informed on things touching the
most vital and lasting interests of the country ? We
seem to be still in the Palaeolithic Age in such matters,
the chief difference being that the sword has replaced the
flint implement.
Some may say that it is contrary to our habit to expect
the Government to interest itself too much or to spend
money on matters relating to peace ; that war dangers
are the only ones to be met or to be studied.
But this view leaves science and the progress of science
out of the question. Every scientific advance is now, and
will in the future be more and more, applied to war. It is
no longer a question of an armed force with scientific
corps ; it is a question of an armed force scientific from
top to bottom. Thank God the Navy has already found
this out. Science will ultimately rule all the operations
both of peace and war, and therefore the industrial and
the fighting population must both have a large common
ground of education. Already it is not looking too far
ahead to see that in a perfect State there will be a double
use of each citizen a peace use and a war use ; and the
more science advances, the more the old difference
between the peaceful citizen and the man at arms will
disappear. The barrack, if it still exists, and the
workshop will be assimilated ; the land unit, like
tli<> battleship, will become a school of applied science,
self-contained, in which the officers will be the efficient
teachers.
I do not think it is yet recognised how much the problem
214 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
of national defence has thus become associated with that
with which we are now chiefly concerned.
These, then, are some of the reasons which compel me
to point out that a scientific council, which might be a
scientific committee of the Privy Council, in dealing
primarily with the national needs in times of peace, would
be a source of strength to the nation.
To sum up, then. My earnest appeal to you is to gird
up your loins and see to it that the science of the British
Empire shall no longer remain unorganised. I have
endeavoured to point out to you how the nation at present
suffers from the absence of a powerful, continuous, reasoned
expression of scientific opinion, urging in season and out
of season that we shall be armed, as other nations are,
with efficient universities and facilities for research to
uphold the flag of Britain in the domain of learning and
discovery, and what they alone can bring.
I have also endeavoured to show how, when this is
done, the nation will still be less strong than it need
be if there be not added to our many existing councils
another, to secure that even during peace the benefits
which a proper co-ordination of scientific effort in the
nation's interest can bring shall not be neglected as
they are at present.
Lest some of you may think that the scientific organisa-
tion which I trust you will determine to found would risk
success in working on such large lines, let me remind you
that in 1859, when the late Prince Consort occupied this
Chair, he referred to " impediments " to scientific progress,
and said, " they are often such as can only be successful^
dealt with by the powerful arm of the State or the long
purse of the nation."
INFLUENCE OF BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY. 215
If the Prince Consort had lived to continue his advocacy
of science, our position to-day would bave been very
different. His early death was as bad for Britain as the
loss of a great campaign. If we cannot make up what we
have lost, matters cannot mend.
I have done what I feel to be my duty in bringing the
present condition of things before you. It is now your
duty, if you agree with me, to see that it be put right.
You can if you will.
THE NATIONAL NEED OF THE STATE
ENDOWMENT OF UNIVERSITIES.*
(1904.)
(1) The British Association has taken action regarding
the State endowment of universities, because at the pre-
sent juncture the highest education and research is a
matter not merely of academic but of the gravest national
concern.
There is now a general opinion that Britain is in danger
of falling behind in the industrial competition now going
on between the most highly civilised States.
The university no less than the primary school is in
question, because we are in the midst of a struggle in
which science and brains take the place of swords and
sinews ; the school, the university, the laboratory and
the workshop are the battlefields of this new struggle,
and the scientific spirit must not be limited to the work-
shop, since other nations utilise it in all branches of their
administration and executive.
The more our legislators, administrators and execu-
tive officers possess the scientific spirit, and the more
the rule of thumb is replaced by scientific methods, the
* Statement prepared by the author as President of the IJritish Association
and revised by a committee consisting of the Deputy Vice- Chancel lor of
Oxford, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, Sir Oliver Lodge,
Principal of the University of Birmingham, Sir Michael Foster, M.P., and
Sir Henry Roscoe.
STATE ENDOWMENT OF UNIVERSITIES. 217
more able shall we be to compete successfully with other
countries along all lines of national as well as of commer-
1 activity.
It is a question of an important change of front, of find-
a new basis of stability for the Empire in face of new
conditions ; and since the full life of a nation with a
nstantly increasing complexity, not only industrial
ut of high national aims, depends upon the universal
presence of the scientific spirit, of brain-power, our whole
national life is involved.
The Function of a University in a Modern State.
The men upon whom the nation must chiefly depend
for aid under the complex conditions of the modern world
must not be entirely untrained in the study of the nature
and causes of the things which surround them, or of the
forces which have to be utilised in our daily life ; their
training and education in humanities must also have
been of the widest.
Such men cannot be produced either by a university
which neglects science or by a technical college which
neglects the humanities.
Hence the universities must be enabled to combine
these two sides of a complete education, and they must
also be enabled to foster research along both lines, for
ivMMrch is the highest and most important instrument
of education, as well as its most valuable result. When
science and its applications were of less importance
than now the humanities sufficed and university re-
quirements were small ; rooms, books and a small
number of teachers of a small number of subjects
comprised the essentials of the university. Modern
218 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
university needs have been too much regarded from
this old standpoint.
All this is now changed. For instance, in the most
modern German university the buildings, all elaborate
and all differing from each other, have already cost a
million, and still the university is not complete. Books
have to be supplemented by expensive instrumental
equipments, which constantly have to be added to
or replaced, and by utilising this new material the
fruitful ramifications of learning have increased fifty-
fold, and the teachers naturally in even greater
proportion.
The extraordinary thing is not that a claim to meet
these new conditions is made now, but that we have
waited so long for it in this country while other countries
faced them long ago.
The Money.
Money is required at the present moment for :
(1) Buildings and equipments for pure and applied
science in both old and new universities.
(2) Pay and pensions of an increased number of Jpro-
fessors, demonstrators, etc., in pure and applied science
in both old and new universities.
(3) Strengthening of science teaching and research
in all, and of the humanities in the new universities.
(4) Reduction of fees, and the wide educational en-
franchisement of proved ability in all classes.
Hitherto universities have looked mainly to private
endowments. Universities have been regarded too
much as luxuries of the rich, and perhaps on this ground
higher education has been treated by the Government
1 ATE ENDOWMENT OF UNIVERSITIES
as of trivial importance to the nation, as a thing it may
properly disregard.
Judging from the action taken in other countries it is
safe to say that private endowment has not produced more
than 10 per cent, of the money actually needed in Britain.
Nor can we rightly appeal to local rate-aid alone. It
would be unjust to expect certain restricted localities
to provide universities which, if we are to go on, must
be utilised by the whole Empire.
We are driven then to the State. The other civilised
States largely endow their universities ; Germany, with
an aggregate income less than ours, spends roughly
1,000,000 a year on its universities. The University of
Berlin alone received more than 168,000 from the State
in the year 1891-2. In the United States, in addition
to 200,000 a year received from the Government, the
States supply 700,000 in the aggregate and private
endowment 2,000,000. The University of Tokio
receives 130,000 a year from the Government of Japan.
These figures derive their chief importance from the
fact that these magnificently endowed and State-aided
universities are the institutions we are contending with
in the production of men to do the nation's work along
all the lines of its activities.
But the large sums available for the efficient working
of the German and American universities are not alone
in question. The number of universities in Germany
is nearly double that of the British universities. The
i lumber <!' first-class universities in the United States
\\linv, as Mr. Choate has told us, education is the chief
business of the nation, is nearly four times that of the
British universities.
220 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
Can we Afford to Spend Money on Universities ?
Britain's great needs at the present moment are brain-
power to invigorate our commerce, among other things,
and sea-power to guard it, among other things. The
State has recently spent 120,000,000 to bring our Navy
up to date ; it has not yet spent a single million on our
universities.
Sir Kobert Giffen has stated that the yearly income
of the people of the United Kingdom may be taken as
not less than 1650 millions,and their aggregate expend-
ture a few years ago was not less than 1,400,000,000.,
including 30,000,000 for education, which is less than
2 per cent of the whole. The amount borne on the
estimates for education is about 13,000,000.
He writes :
" The country should be spending 100 millions, where it now spends
thirty, or about 5 per cent. . . . Such sums are not really extravagant.
Extensive diffusion of education and scientific knowledge and training
are not only essential to the greater efficiency of labour and capital
by which the means of living are provided, but they are equally needed
for the conduct of life itself, for the health and comfort of the workers."
It cannot be doubted that the expenditure will be-
quickly remunerative. More efficient workers will pro-
duce more.
Money so spent is seed from which a harvest can be
looked for ; the plentifulness of the crop will depend
upon the seed and the way it is sown.
One of our manufacturers who has been most success-
ful in applying science to industry has stated that if we
were now to borrow 10,000,000 for university purposes
we should get the money back in the course of one genera-
tion a hundred- fold.
STATE ENDOWMENT OF UNIVERSITIES.
221
The recent recognition of the fact that we have too
few universities, and that those that we have are ineffi-
cient for want of funds, is similar to that awakening
which occurred in 1888 regarding the Navy. In both
cases we have to correct past mistakes lasting for years,
and seeing that university buildings, as well as annual
endowments, are required, some special provision should
be made for their early erection.
The Universities in Relation to Secondary Education.
Now that the primary and secondary schools through-
out the country are being co-ordinated, the time has
arrived for making our universities and university colleges
efficient. The teaching connected with the universities
must be of the highest, and the chief function of the
secondary schools should be to produce students pos-
sessing that general training in science and the humani-
ties which will ensure the success of their subsequent
careers, either inside or outside a university.
A system of leaving certificates and a reduction of fees
would at once get rid of the tyranny of merely qualifying
or selecting examinations which are the bane of educa-
tion, and would enable the training of the poorest to be
carried to the highest rung of an unbroken ladder.
OPENING ADDRESS AT THE INAUGURATION
OF THE BRITISH SCIENCE GUILD.*
< (1905.)
My Lord Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen, My duty is to
present a very brief report of the action of the organising
committee of the Guild, which has led up to the present
meeting. The Royal Society permitted the first meet-
ing of the committee to be held in its rooms, in June of
last year ; officers were appointed and a Memorandum
was drawn up, sketching the objects and proposed organi-
sation of the guild, for circulation among those whose
sympathy and support were hoped for. The Memorandum
was circulated privately in the first instance. The re-
sponses received were so extremely satisfactory, that the
committee felt justified in their belief that a large number
of the most distinguished representatives of every branch
of national life and activity were in sympathy with the
movement, and eventually the Memorandum was circu-
lated to the members of both Houses of Parliament
and the Fellows of the Royal Society, and afterwards to
various technical societies, chambers of commerce and
similar organisations. Notices were also sent to the
Press. At a meeting held in last March, it was resolved
to advance beyond the general statement of objects,
which was all the organising committee was in a position
* At the Mansion House, October 30, 1905.
OPENING ADDRESS AT BRITISH SCIENCE GUILD. 223
to formulate, and with this view to proceed to the forma-
tion of a larger committee, the members of which should
be chosen to represent various localities and various in-
terests. In June a circular was issued to the members,
giving some account of the proceedings of the organising
committee, and defining further the aims of the guild.
This published statement of aims has been sent to all
invited to this meeting. In the same month it was
ecided that the inauguration of the Guild should take
lace in the autumn, and a sub-committee of three was
appointed to advise with regard to all necessary arrange-
ments. In July the report of this sub-committee was
considered ; the list of officers circulated to-day was taken
hand, and, among other matters dealt with, I was
quested, my Lord Mayor, to ask you if you would allow
e guild to be launched with becoming dignity, by con-
senting that the inaugural meeting should be held in this
historic hall under your presidency. The organising
committee is grateful for the consent you so readily
accorded. They feel that you have strengthened their
hands, and that under such auspices there is a hope, nay
a certainty, that the guild may do for British national
endeavour in the future what your ancient guilds, each
in its special line of action, were founded to do in the
long, long past. When my own views as to the import-
ance, nay the burning necessity, of such a movement as
this, throughout the land, among all classes, and in touch
with all employments, woro. expressed some time ago, I
suggested that it mi.irht l>< 4 brought about by extending the
functions of some existing organisation, such for instance
as the British Association, but this, I was soon made to
see, was to take an entirely too narrow view of the matter ;
224 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
it was a question not merely of science and scientific men,
but a question of conducting all our national activities,
State services and private services, and what not, under
the best possible conditions and with the greatest amount
of brain power. It is not, I repeat, merely a question for
scientific men ; they are really not more concerned than
others. Let me just refer for one moment and I will
only take one moment to the question of education in
its most general aspect. I yield to none in respect for
those studies which embrace ancient civilisations and
their literatures, but they alone are as incapable of form-
ing the complete man fitted to cope with the problems pre-
sented by the world as it exists, as would be instruction
in the mere facts of science apart from the actual use of
the methods of observation and discovery. A complete
education must be based upon things and thinking as well
as upon words and memory ; we want one kind of edu-
cation for everybody the best and we want that educa-
tion to be carried as far as is possible in the case of each
individual, whether the time available for education is
long or short. No one should be stopped, save by his
own incapacity, from proceeding further down the fair
stream of education. A perfect scheme of education
should make the complete man, intellectually, morally
and physically. It must not be limited merely to in-
tellect ; and we want that stream freed from the impedi-
ments with which it is at present dammed spell the
word as you will impediments a great many of them
absolutely hurtful, and most of them unnecessary from
a large point of view. In a word, we want to revert to
the ideal of the original university, in the curriculum
of which natura rerum was never absent and the poor
OPENING ADDRESS AT BRITISH SCIENCE GUILD. 225
scholar was always provided for. I will not take up your
time by attempting even to sketch the tremendous reflex
action such an education as this may have upon national
affairs. I content myself by pointing out that the
Western World is now amazed at the sudden rising of
an Eastern people as a world-power, and is wondering at
the efficiency of both the Navy and Army of Japan.
There is really nothing to wonder at, and most of the
reasons suggested for it are, I hold, entirely wrong. If
the Japanese religion or the old civilisation of the country
were the factors, China would have followed suit. The
real reason is simply that the complete education I have
sketched has been at work in Japan for thirty years,
and during that time, everybody, from the Mikado to
the smallest boy and girl, have been taught to think.
They have been dealing with things as well as words
in their schools, and they represent at the present moment
the maximum of efficiency and brain power, as the result
of that treatment. Mr. Chamberlain, Lord Rosebery,
and others have referred to the relative advance I
may say the great relative advance of the commerce
and industry of Germany and the United States. Let me
again point out that these are par excellence the lands of
complete and numerous State-aided universities. Surely
it is more than a coincidence that we find in those lands,
the State service and all the national activities carried
on in the full light of modern science, by men who have
received a complete training both in science and the
humanities in close touch with the Governments. If the
guild helps in any way to improve our national position
in this respect, it will not have been founded in vain,
but there is certainly much for it to do along many lines.
1
THE NEW RENAISSANCE.*
(1905.)
I should like to state that when I accepted the
responsibility of coming here to say a few words to you to-
night, I should not have done so unless I had had a previous
opportunity of examining into your methods of work,
into your laboratories, into the way in which your teachers
go to work, and the general lay of the land. I may say
that that opportunity impressed us just as favourably
as this evening has done touching the real, solid endeavour
that is being made here to do that piece of work which is
the most important which can be done in England at
the present moment. Those of you who know what you
are doing here and know what is being done in other places
must feel that we are at a very interesting, almost a
critical, time from an educational point of view. We
may be said, indeed, to be at the beginning of a new
renaissance a new birth of learning, just in the same way
that our forebears, A.D. 1000 up to A.D. 1200, were in
the forefront of that first renaissance. But the trouble
is that the dark ages did not cease then, for we have had a
dark age since, and it is to correct this second dark age
that this new birth is necessary. Now what did the in-
habitants of Europe do at that first renaissance ? They
kept on the schools which had been brought down by the
* An address at the Borough Polytechnic Institution, December 4, 1905.
THE NEW RENAISSANCE 227
different rulers, the different church authorities, from the
time of the Roman Empire. The Roman schools, judging
from what the Romans did from Scotland to the south
end of the Red Sea, must have dealt with the science of
the time, and that perhaps is the reason that the earliest
universities always included " the nature of things " in
their curricula. A modern public schoolmaster might not
think their education complete because Latin and Greek
were the modern languages then, and the students were
taught no dead ones ; but, be this as it may, at the renais-
sance they insisted upon the teaching of Latin because
then everybody who was anybody spoke Latin it was
the lingua franca of Europe and not to speak Latin
was to belong to the corps of the deaf and dumb. Secondly
they had to learn Greek, because the movers in the educa-
tional world at that time were chiefly doctors, and they
had learned all they could about doctoring and surgery
from bad Latin translations of bad Arabic translations
of the Greek authorities, so that when the Greek manu-
scripts became available all the world was agog to learn
Greek in order chiefly that they might learn medicine and
surgery. Now, I want to point out to you that in this
we had education founded absolutely and completely
upon the crying needs of the time. Very good. Then
if we are going to do anything like that in our new renais-
sance what ought we to do if we are to follow precedent ?
We must arrange our education in some way in relation
to the crying needs of the time. The least little dip into
the history of the old universities will prick the bubble of
ssical education as it is presented to us to-day. Latin
not learned because it had the most magnificent
of known languages. Greek was not learned in
P2
228 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
consequence of the transcendental sublimity of ancient
Greek civilisation. Both these things were learned because
people had to learn them to get their daily bread, either
as theologians or doctors or lawyers, and while they learned
them the " nature of things " was not forgotten.
Now what is the problem of to-day ? We are in a
world which has been entirely changed by the advent
of modern science, modern nations, and modern industries,
and it is therefore perfectly obvious that if we wish to do
the best for our education it must be in some relation to
those three great changes which have come on the world
since the old days. Remember in the old days there was
no experimental philosophy, there was no steam, there was
little relation practically between the ordinary lives of the
people and the phenomena, or, at all events, the working,
of the world of nature around them. But with us all our
life, the poorest life, the richest life, the country life, the
town life, if it is to be lived properly and wholesomely,
has to be lived in the full light of modern science ; we have
to know exactly the best thing to do and why we should
do it. The problem before us to-day, if it be the same
problem that was before those old peoples, the problem,
that is to say, of learning everything we can from those
around us in other nations, must drive us to the study of
modern languages just as the modern world conditions
drive us to modern science ; so that there, I think, we have
an answer to those who may ask of us : What changes are
you going to make in modern education if you are going
to have the best possible education ? First of all, we have
the fact that we are bound, if we follow precedent, to deal
with those things which are of importance from the present
point of view. Latin is no longer the lingua franca of
THE NEW RENAISSANCE. 229
Europe, and we have better guides in science and philo-
sophy than Aristotle. A question which arises when we
go on to consider this matter is a very simple one : Is it
worth while bothering about education ? Is it worth
while troubling to inquire what the old renaissance did
or the new renaissance ought to do ? Now there we
approach a question in which the world is certainly very
much wiser than it was a few years ago. Thirty or forty
years ago, I am sorry to say, in this country practically
nobody cared anything whatever about education, at all
events about the education of the people, and the trouble
with us now the trouble that we shall have to take years
to get over is that in Germany that question was settled
as early as the time of Luther, who insisted that it was
the duty of all communities to look after the education
of their children as well as the building of bridges and the
making of roads. Now I think it is generally accepted,
both in this country and in others, that whether the
citizens of a State are educated or not is a matter of
absolutely supreme importance and when I say " edu-
cated " please understand that I mean educated morally
and physically as well as intellectually. It is no longer
n ir rely the concern of the child or of the child's parent.
It is acknowledged to be the only true foundation for a
State's welfare and continued progress under conditions of
or under conditions of war. We must face the
applications of all the new sciences to every department
<>! our much more complex national life, from the lowest
employment to the highest fields of statecraft. Now
r ou see if that is anything like true we have a great
^possibility cast upon us when we talk about education.
id when we inquire into the conditions we are still more
230 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
impressed by this strenuous necessity of looking the facts
straight in the face and seeing how this question affects us,
not merely as being in this Borough Polytechnic, but as
being Britons, as being members of a civilised community
in the twentieth century. I have already told you that
even so far back as the time of Luther the Germans insisted
that all their children should be educated ; there should
be no difference between the rich and the poor. What has
grown out of that ? The thing has gone on from strength
to strength, until now in Germany, to deal with the old
world, we find a country with the greatest number of
universities, with the greatest possible desire, from the
Kaiser down to the peasant, to do everything for Germany
that can be done by educating every child that is born in
the country. What did democracy do when democracy
had fair play in the United States of America ? The first
thing done was to apportion millions of acres for the future
endowment of education. The acres did not mean much
capitalised then, but they mean a great deal capitalised
now, so that in the Western States of America, where you
get the purest- voiced democracy that you can get, I think,
on the surface of the planet, the children of the citizens,
boys and girls, are educated from the age of six to the age
of six-and-twenty without any call upon the parents or
without any hesitation to carry as many as possible up to
the very highest form of education. And when does the
technical instruction come in there ? The technical
instruction is given only to those who have taken degrees
in the university. Japan is following on the same lines.
The educational system of Japan was started as near as
may be at the same time that the new educational policy
was begun here. The result of it has been that you have
UNIVERSITY
THE NEW RENAISSANCE. 231
in Japan now a completely trained nation, trained to think,
trained to do the best along any line that may turn up,
and the difference between the existence of such a training
and its opposite we have now in comparing the present
condition of Japan with the present condition of China.
Japan has become a world power with whom we are proud
to associate simply because the Japanese children have
been taught to think and to do for thirty years. That is
one of the most blessed things to think of, because it shows
that if any nation, even the British nation, ultimately
finds that it is backward, some thirty years, or perhaps
en twenty years, spent in Japanese fashion may put
erything right. But if that is so, then it is my duty
point out to you that we have a great deal to do.
have said that our present system of education was
commenced, roughly, some thirty years ago, when the
Japanese system was started, but at present our system
deals only with primary and secondary education. It is a
most extraordinary thing, our Minister of Education
hasn't anything to do with the most important part of
education. It is a situation truly British. Well, if we
find that it is necessary to imitate the action of other States
in having a department which shall include the top of
education as well as the bottom, it is right that I should
tell you at once that this will cost a great deal of money
above what we spend at present. If we take one German
University, Berlin the equivalent of the University
<>i London .-the German State spends on it the sum of
169, (MM i a year. That is to say, it spent that sum in the
year 1891-2. Whereas for our higher educational institu-
tions all the universities and university colleges in Eng-
land, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales till quite recently, the
232 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
British Government allowed a smaller sum. That, I
suppose, perhaps may be considered a fair estimate of the
importance of education in the eyes of the British Govern-
ment and in the eyes of the German Government. The
worst of all this is, it is not merely a question of money
and increasing taxation ; it is a question of the hampering
of all the industries of the country from top to bottom,
from John 0' Groat's to the Land's End. In an official
document published by the United States Government
some four years ago, it was stated, as a result of consider-
able inquiry, that taking the day students in the United
States, in those colleges and universities where only day
students were considered, there were more teachers of
science in the United States than there were students of
science turned out from the English colleges. Now, if
that or anything like it is true, do you think that in any
continued competition along any line in connection with
any industry in the United States and here, that we are
likely to come out top ? It is absolutely impossible. Sir
William Mather, more recently, has given us some informa-
tion on this point. He spent four months in America
looking up the technical colleges and the conditions relat-
ing to the education of the industrial classes. He found
that ten years ago there were attending educational estab-
lishments, that is to say, universities and colleges, 32,000
day students ; all these were taking a three years' course.
To-day there are 65,000 students being educated at these
same colleges, and he says the spirit of America is so
completely aroused to the necessity of making science the
basis of all industry, it does not matter whichever it is,
however simple the undertaking, the whole tendency
and trend of thought and feeling is to educate large masses
THE
of their young men so that they may take their part, not
only as managers, employers, and capitalists, but as fore-
men and chief workmen in their great industries, and he
ends by saying that it is necessary that we should urge
our Government, whether it be Liberal or Conservative, to
take care that there should be sufficient expenditure
rovided to enable our young people throughout the
length and breadth of the land to possess equal advantages
to those of young people of Germany and America.
Well, then, if it is right that there should be this educa-
ion conferred upon the nation, these enormous advan-
ges, in considering the thing from the point of view
ither of the child or the child's parent, should there be
.e State-aided education for the rich and another for
he poor ? That is to say, if education the best education
is worth all that is claimed for it, should the State
deliberately foster the artificial production of a breed of
second-rates ? How can every child have a fair chance ?
Some of the older ones among you may remember
Kingsley's " Saint's Tragedy." I will just quote two
verses, with a little alteration in one :
; ' The same piece of clay makes a tile,
A pitcher, a taw, or a brick :
Dan Horace knew life you may cut out a saint
Or a bench from the self-same stick.
M \\c fall on our legs in this world,
Bliiul kittens tossed in iKM-k ami hrcU ;
'Ti- cducat'on that licks Nature's cubs into shape,
She's tin- mill-head if we are the wheels."
urely then, if we must not differentiate education,
if we must not knowingly support second-rate edu-
cation, our duty is to find the best. Well, then we
come to the problem which I haven't the courage to
234 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
bring before you now, because one might talk for a
week about it, and I have only twenty minutes left at
the outside, even if you will grant me as much as that.
What is the best education ? It has taken the world
a long time to find out what it already knows about it,
but I doubt whether even now the world has quite got to
the bottom of the problem. I think we may begin by
saying that the best education should teach us to learn
how to think and how to observe and how to use our hands
and eyes and brain ; how to exercise the body, how to
become good and useful citizens, and this is my own
notion, perhaps you all will not agree to it how to
bear arms. Now, if you have such an education as
that going on all over the United Kingdom, my idea
is that, whatever may happen to them afterwards,
whether the children become either archbishops or
ploughmen, they would not be harmed by such an educa-
tion, and, as a matter of fact, they could not have spent
their time better. Now, that is a very important thing
to bear in mind, because there are systems of so-called
education about which it could be shown in a moment
that those who have been put under them might have
spent their time very much better. We must discrimi-
nate really very much more carefully than is generally
done between education, which I will define as the power
of learning how to think, and instruction, which means
the accumulation of facts. Education may bring us into
contact with doing things by which money may be
earned, but that contact in education is used for mental
training. Useful knowledge may easily become the
bane of education. Instruction in doing things frankly
pursued for the purpose of earning a living is generally
THE
1NAISSANCE.
tot so imparted that the power of thinking properly is
tcreased and the general training carried on further.
If that is anything like true, then we come to the
important consideration that the best teaching must
certainly include the teaching of doing things we must
not merely cultivate the memory and, above all things,
we must not stuff useful knowledge or stuff anything
else into those young minds with which we have to deal.
They are not Strassburg geese, and the more you attempt
to stuff them the worse it will be. What we have to do
is to train the mind as a delicate rapier, enabling it to
do anything it has to do in the most perfect manner
to train the eye, the hands, the brain, to face anything
under the best possible conditions. The question here
arises, what sort of a code have we now for the edu-
cation of the young ? this new code the code for the
year 1905 for elementary schools. Well, for myself,
I thank God that we have such a document. It is an
enormous improvement upon everything, upon any-
thing, which has gone before it in our country. I re-
member some twenty years ago when the only conces-
sion made to the new knowledge was that some candidate,
if he liked, might say something of what he knew about
the common pump ; it hardly went further than the
co nu IK m pump but the new code goes very much
further than the common pump, and you may even
look at the stars if you like ; you may even observe
once or twice a year where the sun is or where the moon
rises. Having this official education for the young, how
are we to deal with it in relation to such an institution
as yours ? How are we to consider what should happen
to the young minds of boys and girls going up that
236 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
educational ladder which Huxley pictured to us some years
ago that educational ladder from the gutter to the
university. In considering such a ladder as this, of
course the end of the teaching, the end of the time spent,
in the primary school constitutes the first rung at which
the educational ladder may be left, and you have to con-
sider the certain number of boys and girls unfortunately
getting off the educational ladder when they leave the
elementary school. The question arises, Must every-
body when they leave the primary school and that, I am
thankful to say, at a gradually increasing age -when
they have done with the official education, must they
have done with the instruction which will enable
them better to earn their daily bread, the instruc-
tion which should, if possible, be placed before them,
because really it is to tackle that instruction and to tackle
the life connected with it that they have been taught to
think. If you omit to give a higher education, or educa-
tion combined with instruction, to your boys and girls
after you have taught them to think, you have made a
good deal of that education ridiculous. Your Institute
proves that it is much better to give instruction to the
young in things that they have to do before you make
them absolutely face the music in the real contact with
the stern world of reality, which they will certainly have
to face sooner or later. When you consider, therefore,
the stepping- off places from the education ladder I
have just referred to the first and the necessity of getting
instruction, of putting instruction in the way of those
who have to step off the educational ladder, the impor-
tance, the enormous importance, of such an institution
as yours begins to force itself upon one. Take the child
THE NE 1
an elementary school under the present regulations,
[nstead of going on to the secondary school and con-
tinuing still further on the elementary ladder, it can
go to a higher elementary school. That is a new idea in
England, and it is a very admirable one. When you ask.
Why does the child step off ? you find yourself confronted
chiefly with the dearness of education in this country,
and then with the supposed necessity for early employ-
ment.
But nowadays the university is not an absolutely pro-
hibited thing if those who have to do with the boys
and girls concerned are keen enough to take every ad-
vantage of every opportunity ; in any case employers
of labour, at all events in other countries and I expect in
this, begin to see the advantage of getting supplied with
clerks and other assistants who have been taught to
think as opposed to getting their offices crowded with
people who have still to learn how to think. There are
several other questions connected with the Huxley edu-
cational ladder. One is that in leaving each rung we
have to acknowledge frankly that we have to face the
music of the struggle for existence. Not every boy
who enters a primary school can go of course to the
university, can go perhaps higher than a secondary
school ; some will even fail to get to a secondary school,
but what you have to consider, I think, generally in
relation to institutions like this is that if there is to be
any stepping off the ladder the change must be made
in the best possible way. The present system of allow-
ing these changes from rung to rung to take place by
examination by outsiders is, I think, absolutely and
completely inde'ensilile. I would hold the teachers in
238 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
every primary school absolutely responsible for saying
that such and such of their students will benefit by secon-
dary education and some of their students will not, and
if that be done then, in consequence of the recent action
of the London County Council, it seems to me that you
will have a rapidly-increasing number of the best Englisl?
boys and girls going on with their pure education, cer-
tainly well into the secondary stage. In this way you
will catch your potential Faradays. Now one of the
delightful things I found in that inspection here with Mr
Millis, to which I have referred, was that in all your
instruction, frankly so called, you make it as educational
as you possibly can, so that those who come to you at any
age after the age of the primary school may, if they
so choose, by taking advantage of one or other of your
organisations, not only get an immense amount of abso-
lately needed instruction for various walks of life, but
an education which will be practically as good as that
which could be got on the ordinary education ladder to
enable them later on to enter the universities. The
recent improvements in education are brought home
to us by the fact that Huxley's ladder by itself no longer
represents all the present possibilities. There are now
platforms at the chief stepping- off places, and ladders
from them also leading to the university for those who
do not fear to climb. These platforms are technical
schools and institutes, in which practical training in
science laboratories and literature must both find
place.
There is one word I should like to say with regard
to your day school. It is called a ' Technical Day
School for Boys." I find that in the London County
THE NEW RENAISSANCE.
239
Council list, Appendix B, it is called a " secondary school."
Now are you a secondary school ? That is a point that
I am not familiar with quite. What I understand is
that under the new regulations a school to be a secondary
school must make application to the Board of Educa-
tion to be reckoned as such, and if it is accepted then
ou have this enormous advantage, or will have very
shortly, if you have not it now. Your students will
have the right to go to the university by passing the
leaving examination, which will ultimately be carried
on by the teachers in the secondary school or, at all
events, by teachers associated with the secondary
school. I think you will agree with me that the less
:y education in any locality is fettered by examination
outsiders the better for that education it will be.
you are a secondary school your students will be able
as a matter of course to enter the new university. Thank
God that in London, after centuries of the neglect of
education, we have a university ; we shall soon be as
well off as a good many second-rate towns on the other
side of the water have been for hundreds of years.
I believe it is settled that your students can matricu-
late at the university, can become internal students
without the bugbear of Latin, if you look upon Latin
as a bugbear. Personally, I do not ; if you have time to
learn Latin, so much the better, but if the struggle for
existence is so great that it is science or nothing with
you, well with science you can new enter the London
University from a secondary school. You will then carry
your local students right up to the second rung, some
will go on to the university, and some will step off to your
evening classes. Voltaire, talking about education, said :
240 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
On etudie les limes en attendant qu'on etudie les hommes
(" We study books before we have a chance of study-
ing men "). Well, we have got past that now ; we not
only study books but we study things, but whether we
study books or things our education will not be complete
until we study men, that is to say until we have varied
occasions of mingling with others who are thinking about
other things, so that we may exchange thoughts and
ideas and sympathies with other students of different
branches of knowledge. Now I want to point out what
a magnificent opportunity you have here for that kind of
collegiate education. You are practically a college, and
I believe strongly that this collegiate life, as we may
call it, this mixing with one's fellow men, is of the very
highest quality, that it is the absolute essential of a
complete course of education which should produce what
is called character. And let me remind you that people
are prepared to pay a great deal for character. I find,
for instance, that Mr. Balfour not very long ago said the
collective effect of our public school education on char-
acter could not be over-rated, but he thought the boys
of seventeen or eighteen who are educated in them do
not care a farthing about the world they live in except
so far as it concerned the cricket field, the football field,
or the river. You have the machinery to enable you
to care a great deal about the world you live in, to
know an immense deal about it, and you have also the
machinery for this formation of character. Now I
believe in the combination, and it is upon that ground
I hope some future day to see a strong secondary school
here. I believe it will be a very great boon to this part
of London, in fact, I feel so strongly on this that I should
THE NE
ty your enormous advantages would be wasted if you did
)t take some part in the general scheme of pure educa-
ion, and that part is quite obvious ; you have to make
your day school one of the best secondary schools it is
possible to imagine. I should have hesitated to give
you my opinion on your proper place in education and
the excellence of your teaching staff and laboratories
if I had not had an opportunity of examining your in-
stitution, and, in concluding, I want again to thank
Mr. Millis for his very great kindness in showing me over
it the other day.
There is one little addition I should like to make to
my address. I told you I hoped our British schools in
rime would teach boys to bear arms. Now bearing
.inns, to my mind, means learning simple drill and handling
a rifle. I do not suppose that in the matter of the future
there will be any other arms than rifles, seeing that a rifle
can get rid of your adversary at a distance of 1,500 yards,
which is a very safe distance indeed, so that I think
we should teach all our children before they have passed
the fifth standard, " fours right " and " fours left,"
and all that sort of thing you see people working at in
the barrack yards. This would get rid of a good deal
of the use of the barrack yard, and the sooner we get rid
of the use the better. With regard to the rifle drill,
tli;it. T take it, can be done by having in an institution
like this a little gallery, hall, or passage, or whatever
you like to call it, something like i2.~> yards long, and
the practice with the miniature rifles is so effective
that I heard of a case the other day in which a sixth
form boy who ha<l been made acquainted with the
handling of a riile in this very miniature way, when his
Q
242 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
school went down to a real butt he put six shots at 600
yards into the bull's eye out of seven. Now that is quite
worth doing, and I should think it would be very interest-
ing if you could add this drill to your excellent system of
gymnastics.
APPENDICES.
(1)
THE GERMAN UNIVERSITIES.*
What Germany thinks of the place of the university in a modern
State can be readily gathered from the large and ever-increasing State
endowments of the numerous universities in Prussia and the other
constituent countries.
The university activity of Prussia itself dates from the time after
Jena, 1806, when the nation was, as Sir Rowland Blennerhassett has
told us, a bleeding and lacerated mass, so impoverished and shattered
that there seemed to be little future before it. King Frederick William
III. and his councillors, among them Wilhelm von Humboldt, founded
tin- University of Berlin, " to supply the loss of territory by intellectual
effort." Among the universal poverty, money was also found for the
Universities of Konigsberg and Breslau, and Bonn was founded in 1818.
Observatories and other scientific institutions were not forgotten. As
of this policy, carried on persistently and continuously by suc-
<i\-e Mini-tcr-. aided by wise councillors, many of them the products
of this policy, such a state of things was brought about that Palmerston,
a typical Kn^lish -tatr<ma n. is >t ited by Matthew Arnold to have
defined the (rermanv of his day as a country of " <1. mined professors,"
:md so well have the damned professors done their work since that not
lontr a^o M. Ferdinand Lot, one of the most distinguished educationists
of France, accorded to (rermany *' a supremacy in science comparable
to the supremacv of Kn^land at sea."
The \\hule history of Prussia since then constitutes indeed a magnifi-
cent object lesson on the influence of hrain-po\\ er on history. There
an he no ,|iestion that the Prussia ,,|' to-day, the leader of a united
March 12, 1903.
244 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
Germany, with its armed strength both for peace and war and craving
for a wider world dominion, is the direct outcome of the policy of
" intellectual effort " inaugurated in 1806.
The most remarkable thing about the German Universities in late
years is the constant addition of new departments, added to enable
them to meet and even to anticipate the demands made for labora-
tories in which each scientific subject, as it has been developed,
can be taught on Liebig's plan, that is by experiment, observation
and research.
It is in such State-aided institutions as these that the members of the
German Ministry and Parliament, and the leading industrials are
trained, while in our case, in consequence of the lack of funds for new
buildings at Oxford and Cambridge, and, until not many years ago,
the lack of other high-teaching centres, our leaders have had to be
content with curricula extant before Galileo was born, the teaching
being, perhaps, not so good and the desire to learn generally much
less.
No one will deny that the brain-power of a nation must, in the last
resort, depend upon the higher mental training obtainable in that
nation. It is well, therefore, to see how we stand in this matter.
The following tables will show what the German Government is doing
to provide brain-power in Germany. Those who know most about our
British conditions will see how we are likely to fare in any competition
with Germany in which brain-power comes in, if indeed there can be any
important sphere of activity undertaken by either King, Lords or
Commons in which brain-power does not come in.
We owe the first table giving the facts relating to the ordinary State
endowments of the twenty-two German universities to the kindness of
Mr. Alexander Siemens, who was good enough to obtain through
official sources an extract from the Preussische Statistik containing an
article by Dr. Petersilie. This deals with 1891-2, the last year dealt
with by the statistical bureau.
In the second table are given the extraordinary expenses incurred
in the same year, also obtained from Dr. Petersilie's article. There
have been added the State endowments for the years 1900-1 and
1902-3, so far as it has been possible to obtain them from Minerva,
in order that the considerable yearly increase in the endowments
may be noted.
It will be seen that those responsible for the continued well-being of
the German State are as busily employed in increasing the efficiency
of their Universities as they are in adding to their navy.
APPENDICES.
Iliifl
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246 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS
APPENDICES.
247
i
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248 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
In Britain there is no concern shown by our Government and poli-
ticians in regard to the real sources of national brain-power, towards
which primary instruction, now well endowed, is but the first step.
Private endowment is still appealed to, though our present unfortunate
position comes from the fact that since the necessary introduction of
science into the curriculum of the higher teaching, private endowment
in the past has not been, nor in the future will it be, able to supply a tithe
of what is really wanted.
(2)
THE UNIVERSITIES OF THE UNITED STATES.*
Any consideration of what the nation has done for higher education
in the United States must be prefaced by a reference to two laws passed
in 1787 and 1862 respectively. The first Act, enacted for the Govern-
ment of the territory north of the Ohio, provided that not more than
two complete townshipsf were to be given to each State perpetually for
the purposes of a " University to be applied to the intended object by
the legislature of the State." In 1862 an Act was passed giving to each
State 30,000 acres of land for each senator and representative to which
the State was then entitled, for the purpose of founding " at least one
college, where the leading object shall be, without excluding other
scientific and practical studies, and including military tactics, to teach
such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic
arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the States shall respectively
prescribe, in order to promote the liberal education of the industrial
classes in the several pursuits and professions of life." J
A reference to Table i. below, showing the number of acres of land
in each of the States, the income, accruing from which is available for
University education, demonstrates more conclusively than any words
could do how very fully advantage has been taken throughout the
United States of the legislative enactments of 1787 and 1862. The
table is due to Dr. Frank W. Blackmar, and is contained in " The History
of Federal and State Aid to Higher Education in the United States,"
published in Washington in 1890.
* Nature, May 14, 1903.
f In surveys of the public land of the United States, a division of territory
six miles square, containing thirty-six sections.
| " Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 1890-7." Vol. ii.,
p. 1145. (Washington, 1898.)
APPENDICES. 249
TABLE LLatid Grants and Reservation.? for Universities.
States and Territories.
Acres.
Dates uf Graut.
Ohio -
09,120
1792, 1803
Indiana .....
46,080
1816, 1804
Illinois .....
46,080
1804, 1818
Missouri
46,080
1818, 1820
Alabama ....
46,080
1818, 1819
Mississippi .....
46,080
1803, 1819
Louisiana .....
46,080
1806, 1811, 1827
Michigan -
46,080
1836
Arkansas .....
46,080
1836
Florida
92,160
1845
Iowa
46,080
1845
Wisconsin .....
98,100
1846, 1854
California .....
46,060
is:,:}
Minnesota
82,640
1861, 1857, 1870
Oregon .....
46,060
1859, 1861
-----
46,080
1861
Nevada
46,080
1866
Nebraska
46,080
1864
Colorado .....
46,080
1875
Washington .....
46,080
1854, 1864
North Dakota)
South Dakota J "
46,080
1881
Montana
4i;,080
1881
Arizona Territory ....
46,080
1881
Idaho Territory -
46,080
1881
Wyoming Territory ....
4<>,080
1881
New Mexico Territory
46,080
1854
Utah Territory
46,080
1855
Total
1,395,920
The grant of 1862 proved insufficient, and in 1890 an Act for the
" more complete endowment of the institutions called into being or en-
dowed by the Act of 1862 " was passed.
I '.ut thrsr land grants do not exhaust the means adopted by the
State to encourage higher education in the United States. In the
book to which reference has been made, Dr. Blackmar summarises
the principal ways in which the several States have aided higher educa-
tion. They are as follows :
(1) By granting charters with privileges.
(2) By freeing officers and students of colleges and Universities
from military duties.
(3) By exempting the persons and properties of the officers
and students from taxation.
250 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
(4) By granting land endowments.
(5) By granting permanent money endowments by statute
law.
(6) By making special appropriations from funds raised by
taxation.
(7) By granting the benefits of lotteries.
(8) By special gifts of buildings and sites.
The result is, as Prof. Edward Delavan Perry, of Columbia University,
has said,* " At the present time, in each of the twenty-nine of the
States of the Union, there is maintained a single ' State University '
supported exclusively or prevailingly from public funds, and managed
under the more or less direct control of the legislature and administra-
tive officers of the State. These States are the following : Alabama,
California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana,
Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada,
North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, South
Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia,
Wisconsin and Wyoming.
" The universal verdict of public opinion in the States where such
institutions are maintained is that they, as State organisations sup-
ported directly by public taxation from which no taxable individual
is exempt, should be open without distinction of sex, colour, or religion
to all who can profit by the instruction therein given."
The figures necessary to express how much university education in
the United States owes to the American Government are large, and
the total amount of the aid is enormous. The following table, drawn
up with the assistance of the report of the United States Commissioner
of Education for the year 1899-1900, will enable the reader to form
some idea of the splendid resources placed at the command of American
Universities. The grand totals under each heading will be found
in Tables v. and vi., so arranged as to show the proportion of each
total available for the University education of women.
The universities and colleges of the United States have another
source of income in addition to the generous provision made by the
State. Every year wealthy American citizens place large sums of
money at the disposal of the educational authorities for the purposes of
higher education and the encouragement of scientific research. During
the eleven years 1890-1901, the amqunt of these donations reached
* See Prof. Nicholas Murray Butler's monographs 011 ;< Education in the
United States," vol. i.
APPENDICES.
j
K
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I
co o" oo if o ^T s if c co * o o" t^ o o co~ i-' x ol ~ ~
H I Ol 't 7t '" I - -H - H -H f-* CO Ol (NO (N
t CO <
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-* o
O
' ~.\ /. / / ^t x' cT o" ci oo" trf 10" to" ^jT co of of of x' it' ?2*
=
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01
: t^ ocT co t ? r^ vr' ~. rT t^ 1 ^ TjT ocT -^ oo" co" t-^
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252 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
ss
II
II 11
8S;
:
t-- |00 I
' of ' 10* 10 "?
rH i
So o o
00 O *
00
o o o o o o
co o 05 o" 10 oo co co 10 of
Oi CO O5 Ut) G^-l CO "^ t"* ^H CO
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,
APPENDICES,
the grand total of nearly 23,000,000*., as Table III., compiled by Prof.
Nicholas Murray Butler, shows :
TABLE III. Tntnl <i mount of Benefactions* to Higher Education in the United
States.
Reported in
1890-91
1891-92
1892-93
1893-94
IS'.H
on
,515,018
,336,917
,343,027
,890,101
,199,645
,810,021
Reported in
1896-97
1897-98
1898-99
1899-1900
1'. too- 01
- 1,678,187
- 1,640,856
- 4,385,087
- 2,399,092
From 1871-1890, the total amount of benefactions for education of the
kind with which this article is concerned was, the annual reports of the
United States Bureau of Education show, 16,285,000*., so that for the
years 1871-1901, the grand total of 40,000,000*. sterling was raised by
private effort for American University education.
The question naturally presents itself, What has been done by private
effort in this country to assist University education during the same
period ? Compared with American munificence, the amounts given and
bequeathed here are very small. Take in the first place the University
Colleges, which are largely to be regarded as a growth of the years
under consideration. The financial statements contained in the " Re-
ports from University Colleges, 1901," published by the Board of
Education, reveal the fact that, including the 400,000*. raised for the
University of Birmingham, the benefactions to the fifteen University
Colleges in Great Britain amounted during 1870-1900 to a little more
than 3,000,000. In the absence of systematic reports during the
same period of the financial resources of the older Universities of the
United Kingdom, it is difficult to estimate the amount of benefactions
ived by them during the same thirty years. The parliamentary
returns which have been published since 1898, showing the revenue
of Scottish Universities, suggest that their benefactions in the same
tim\ excluding Mr. Carnegie's splendid gift, may be put at something
under 500,000, so that for the whole of the Tnitivl Kingdom the
total amount of endowment from private sources raised in these years
may, without any risk of un<h'r-<>stimation, l>e sai-1 to le considerably less
than 5,000,0
To ^ive some idea of the result of the broad-minded policy of the
of th several States and of the treatment which higher
by Prof. Xirholus Murray Butl.-r. Columbia Univr.r>ity. ami pub.
IMi.-.l iii --Snr.-i.Ml R,. purls on K.lurutioiiiil Subj.M-ts," vol. \i., part ii.
254
EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
education has received at the hands of American statesmen and men of
wealth, the following short summaries have been drawn up, with the
assistance of the Report of the Commissioner of Education of the United
States Bureau at Washington, published in 1901, for the year 1899-1900.
The first (Table IV.), shows the number of colleges having endowments
TABLE IV. Classification of Colleges and Universities for Men and for both
Sexes, according to Amount of Endowment Fund.
56
38
13
14
7
4
5
2
1
8
5
3
4
4
1
2
of certain specified amounts. The second summary (Table V.), shows
the total property of all American university colleges, tabulated under
the headings of fellowships and scholarships ; values of libraries,
apparatus, grounds and buildings ; and of their productive funds. The
next (Table VI.), shows the amounts of income of these colleges, and the
last (Table VII.), gives the total number of professors, instructors and
students in colleges of university standing.
It is interesting in this connection to compare the number of students
taking university courses in this country with those in Germany and the
United States. With this object in view, Table VIII. has been prepared,
but it should be pointed out that the number of students in our univer-
sity colleges includes all above the age of sixteen, which is probably
much lower than the age of these students included in the totals for
other countries. It is well to remember, too, that the number *of
American university students is probably too high for a fair comparison
with those of Germany. Many university students in the United States
are really students in higher branches of technology, and would in
Germany study in technical high schools, the students of which
are not included in Germany's total in the table. To make the
20,000 t
o 40,000
40,000
60,000
00,000
80,000
80,000
100,000
100,000
120,000
120,000
140,000
140,000
160,000
100,000
180,000
180,000
200,000
200,000
250,000
250,000
300,000
300,000
400,000
400,000
600,000
000,000
800,000
800,000
1,000,000
l,000,00v)
1,500,000
1,500,000
2,000,000
Over 2,000,000
APPKXDirKS.
255
11
'- i
- _r:
= =.
M
r
ill
<*
S
g|
II
EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
comparisons as simple as possible the number of university students
per 10,000 of population has been calculated.
TABLE VII. Professors, Instructors and Students in Universities and
Colleges of United States.
Institutions.
Professors and Instructors.*
Men.
Women.
For men and for both sexes (480
institutions) -
For women (141 institutions) -
12,664
697
1,816
1,744
Students.
Men.
Women.
Total number of students in Univer-
sities and colleges ....
61,800
35,300
TABLE VIII. Number of University Students per 10,000 of Population (1900).
Country.
Population.
Number of Students.
Number of
Students
per 10,000
of popula-
tion.
United Kingdom
41,164,000
Universities
University )
Colleges j"
Day.
12,000
8,500
Evening
5,000
4-98f
German Empire -
United States -
56,367,000
76,086,000
44,400
97,100
7-87
12*78
The statistics provided above make it possible to form a good estimate
of the comparative amounts of importance attached to higher education
in this country and in the United States. Table VI. shows that,
neglecting the income accruing from the State land grants, the legisla-
tures of individual States and the United States Government together
supplied about 900,000/. for university education during 1809-11)00,
* Excluding duplicates,
t Excluding evening students of University Colleges,
HCES. 257
while the article in NATURE for March 12, 190.3, shows that the total
State aid to universities and colleges in the United Kingdom at present
amounts only t < > I -V>. G00. Table VI. also brings out another important
principle ; it reveals the fact that during 1899-1900 private effort pro-
vided m<>re than two and a quarter millions sterling for the colleges of the
United States, and thus leads to the conclusion, which is strengthened
by Table III., that interest on the part of the State in higher education
leads to a corresponding enthusiasm among men of wealth.
A comparative study of this kind is of vital national interest ; our
very existence as a nation depends directly upon success in that indus-
trial warfare between the great countries of the world from which there
can be no peace. The last article in this series has shown the great
importance attached by German statesmen to the higher education of
ie directors of German industries, and how greatly superior is the
) vision made for this purpose in Germany to that in this country.
similar conclusion is reached by studying the subject from the Ameri-
can point of view ; we are equally behind the United States. Unless
our Government, on one hand, and our men of wealth on the other,
take immediate steps, and make serious efforts to remedy these deficien-
cies in our higher education, British manufacturers cannot hope to hold
their own successfully with either German or American competitors.
The amount by which we fall short of the United States, the deficiency
which must be made good simply to bring us level with America in the
race for industrial supremacy, will be seen from the following deductions
from the above statistics :
(1). The amount raised during 1871-1901 by private munificence for
higher education was, in the United States, more than eight times that
similarly provided in the United Kingdom.
(2). In addition to the large income from State land grants, the amount
provided by the State for higher education is, in the United States, six
times as much as the Government grant for the same purpose in the United
Kingdom, where there is nothing corresponding to the land grants.
(3). In the United States there are 170 colleges with an endowment
of more than 20,000. ; forty-nine of these have endowments of more
than 100,000/., and three of more than two millions sterling. In the
United Kingdom there are thirteen universities and twenty other uni-
:'\- colleges. Four of the universities do little more than examine.
(4). In the United States nearly thirteen of every 10,000 inhabitants
are studying during the day at colleges of university status ; the
number in the United Kingdom is less than five.
(5). The value of the endowments of institutions of higher education
in the single State of New York exceeds the total amount of benefactions
R
258 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
for similar purposes raised during thirty years in the whole of the
United Kingdom. The same is nearly true in the States of Massachu-
setts and of California.
(6). The number of professors and instructors at the Universities and
colleges included in the list of the United States Commissioner of
Education is 17,000. The number of day students in our Universities
and University Colleges is only about 20,500, so that there are almost as
many University teachers in the United States as there are University
students in the United Kingdom !
A careful study of the tables here brought together will do more than
anything else to explain the success which has attended American
manufactures and commerce in recent years. America has learnt
that to energy and enterprise must be added trained intellect and a
familiarity with recent advances in science. Other things being equal,
that nation will be most successful in the competition for the markets
of the world which makes the most generous provision for the higher
education of its people.
(3)
THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM.*
Among the many documents prepared by Principal Sir Oliver Lodge
in relation to the development of the University of Birmingham, there
are more than one of which the interest is by no means merely local.
Of these, the pamphlet entitled " Survey of the Sciences," which forms
an appendix to a paper on University Development, is of especial im-
portance at the present time, for we are glad to know that the belief
that the weakness of our Universities must lead to national weakness in
several directions is growing with a rapidly accelerating pace.
It may be long in this slow-moving country before the influence of
brain-power on history is recognised as fully as the influence of sea-power
has been, thanks to Captain Mahan, but undoubtedly it will be bad for
our future if much more time is lost.
The paper on the " Survey of .the Sciences " begins as follows :
" In a recent pamphlet I considered the question of the relation
of the University of Birmingham to its central and suburban sites,
with a view of determining what recommendations should be made
to the Council concerning the Departments which ought to migrate and
the Departments which ought to remain. I was able to arrive at some
judgment on the matter except in connection with the Faculty of Science,
* Nature, January 1, 1903.
APPENDICI
and there the problem became so oomplicated that it was necessary
to make a survey of the sciences in order to get the material on which
to form an opinion. This survey is now printed, not only as an appendix
to the former paper, but because it is hoped that it may be useful for
other purposes ; especially I hope that it may be of interest to those
who are able to help financially in the forthcoming great educational
development of the future, enabling them to realise the immensity of
the area which we attempt to cover, and the largeness of the sum which
could be properly invested in suitable buildings and equipment and in
endowment of staff. Our position is such that if some man of power
thought fit to exercise it by entrusting us with a sum of 5,000,000. for
University development, it could be well and properly employed;
nor could such an investment fail to exercise an extraordinary influence
on the progress of the country. Hitherto the ideas of this country
in education and srientiiir research have been conceived on a wholly
inadequate scale, and without proper appreciation of the vast extent of
territory over which a modern University is called upon to preside."
After referring to the sciences already dealt with at Birmingham
and the collateral branches and practical applications, the pamphlet
concludes as follows :
" In venturing to name such a sum as 5,000,000, I have had in view
certain considerations which it may be well to set forth.
" First, it has been found that the Carnegie donation to Scottish
universities is insufficient to attain its objects, and already it appears
likely that it may have to be doubled.
Next, it is well-known, and indeed painfully familiar to all who have
do with administration, that every new department started, and
new building erected, means an increase of current expenditure
and a drain upon resources. Expenditure is called for on behalf of
rates, portering and cleaning, heating and lighting, maintenance,
depreciation and supersession of equipment, and materials for experi-
ments and processes. There are also annual grants to be made to the
library, to the various laboratories and museums, and to departmental
libraries. Then there is a large disbursement for salaries of demon-
strators and curators and assistance and technical instructors. All
these expenses come out of revenue, and are probably best provided
for by the income derived from fees, and from the contemporary support
of county and other bodies, so as to preserve dependence on the interest
of the living generation. But it is highly desirable to keep fees low
not by any means to abolish tln-m, but to keep them low so as to
bring higher education within reach of all who are able to make use of
it : a number \vhi< h. with the improvement of schools, will probably be
R 2
"
260 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
rapidly increasing. Hence it is probable that the above-mentioned
items of annual expenditure will absorb the whole of the ordinary
annual income and leave nothing for the payment of the chief professors
and lecturers. Everywhere it has been found essential that chairs
shall be endowed, so as to put them on a permanent and substantial
basis ; moreover it is vitally important to be able to attract the best
men, wherever they are to be found. At the present time it is not
usually possible to compete with other places for the best men unless we
can offer a sum comparable to 1,000 a year, and in some subjects more.
" An invested million will therefore on the average relieve the annual
income of the stipends for thirty principal chairs. There must be a
large number of lectureships, or subsidiary and supplemental chairs, and
sixty of these at 500 each could be provided with the second million.
" The buildings already in progress on the new site are to cost more
than a quarter of a million, and the remainder of what has been sketched
out and actually contemplated will cost the other three-quarters.
Another half a million at least will be needed to equip them properly.
" The older or central site will also need considerable enlargement
and fresh buildings should rise there. Half a million may be set aside
for ultimate building and equipment on and near the Mason College site.
" Four out of the five millions are thus accounted for ; the fifth is
intended for a real attempt at scientific research in all departments.
A fund by which men could be sent to any part of the world : to study
tropical diseases, or fisheries, or mining possibilities to investigate
either nascent industries or injured industries of any kind ; a fund
which could equip research laboratories at home, and could defray the
expense of researches undertaken on a large or engineering scale, so as
to bring in rapidly some practical results. At present there are men who
perceive how many things could be reformed or improved, whether
n purification of the atmosphere, or in novel modes of locomotion,
or in many other ways ; but they lack the means to demonstrate their
plans or to try experiments. Manufacturers and municipalities some-
times try experiments on a very extensive scale indeed a really com-
mercial scale and in case of failure the resulting experience is over-
dear. The endowment would not allow experiments on such a scale
as that ; considering the variety of subject, the amount available for
each would permit of no extravagance. Some of the experiments
undertaken would undoubtedly fail, yet the success of a few would far
more than compensate for the failure of many, and the activity could
not but conduce to progress.
" The fund would have to provide not only the necessary appliances
and Assistance, but it would endow fellowships for post-graduate study
TENDI4
and would attract workers from many parts of the world, and certainly
from the Colonies.
" One Principal could not possibly supervise all the multifarious
activities which we have thus supposed may some day be called into
being. There would have to be a Research Principal (whatever he
might be called), to organise and superintend the scientific and post-
graduate study ; a Technical Director, in touch with all the technical
departments ; and an Educational or General Head, to supervise the
general scheme of the college in all its various avenues to a degree, and
to take a lead in whatever conduced to general culture.
" If the scheme is lavish it represents lavishness in the right place.
It is the kind of lavishness for which the nation is waiting one of the
few kinds of which hitherto it has been afraid.
" ' There is that scatteretk but yet increaseth ;
There is that withholdeth more than is meet, but
it tendeth to poverty.'
" These lines refer not to individual wealth alone, but to national
wealth also. We have failed to make the most hitherto of the brains
and energy of our more able and specially-gifted youth, but have
cramped them by the necessity of earning a living : a process whole-
some enough for the individual, and right for 999 out of every thousand,
but for the remaining one far less repaying to the Commonwealth than
the special service which he could render, if set free and encouraged by
suitable surroundings for a few years of research, following on a thorough
educational preparation. Not all of these would justify their selection :
nine-tenths of them even might do only moderately well; but the
discoveries of the select tenth would be of incalculable value. The
world has been wasteful of its genius hitherto. It thinks too facilely
that people exceptionally endowed will struggle to the front somehow.
A few do, but a number do not ; the conditions are not favourable ;
and the struggle for existence, though doubtless a stimulating training
for the hardier and sturdy virtues, is not the right atmosphere for the
delicate plant called genius. Different kinds of treatment are suited
to different characters, and the hot- house plant will not thrive in bracing
arctic air.
" From the trust deed with which Mr. Carnegie has endowed a
research institution at Washington with 10,000,000 dollars, I extract the
following altogether admirable statement of ' aims ' :
" * 1. To promote original research : paying great attention thereto,
as one of the most important of all departments.
" ' 2. To discover the exceptional man in every department of
study, whenever and wherever found, inside or outside of schools ;
262
EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
and to enable him to make the work for which he seems specially
designed his life-work.
" ' 6. To ensure the prompt publication and distribution of the
results of scientific investigation ; a field considered highly important.
. . . " ' The chief purpose of the founder being to secure if possible,
for the United States of America leadership in the domain of discovery,
and the utilisation of new forces for the benefit of man.' '
(4)
THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE WELSH UNIVERSITY AND COLLEGES.*
We saw that the great bulk of the endowments of the German univer-
sities was provided by the State, 81 per cent, of the total being so
provided in Prussia, and 74 per cent, in Germany as a whole. Wales,
happily or unhappily, possesses comparatively few men whose individual
possessions could enable them to take part in endowing her colleges in
any way commensurate with the need. Of the sums that have been
raised for buildings, a great part has been collected, at the cost of
healthy but disproportionate effort, from the shillings and pence of
artisans and small farmers or traders. It is not surprising, therefore,
to find that the colleges and the university depend already mainly
upon public funds. The county council grants to Cardiff and Aberyst-
wyth must in fairness be counted as fees, not endowments, since they are
given in return for teaching a definite class of students, and a change
of policy in the local authorities might at any time modify or even
divert their contributions. The figures are approximately t as follows,
reckoning the interest on investments, as heretofore, at 2J per cent.,
and including in the Government grants those devoted to special objects,
such as agriculture, and the training of primary teachers.
Present Endowment of University Education in Wales.
Income from
Income from
Private
Government
Endowments.
Grants.
University College, Aborystwyth
375
0,000
University College, Bangor
1,225
0,000
University College, Cardiff
750J
5,250
The University of Wales -
4,000
Totals -
2,350
21,250
Percentages -
10
90
* Nature, July 16, 1903.
t The exact figures vary slightly from year to year.
% Including the annual grant of 350 from the Drapers' Company for engineering.
APPENDICES.
263
aill
?
ere is only one conclusion. In great cities like Liverpool and
Manchester there is accumulated wealth and an accumulated tradition
f culture to which their colleges have appealed with some success. In
Wales the culture has been for centuries remote from university life,
and the wealth, as we have seen, is non-existent. If, therefore, the
vi'rnment wishes that the 21,000 a year which it now spends in grants
the colleges and the University of Wales shall not be wasted, it is
high time that it should face the question of what they really need.
In order to represent these needs in as concrete a form as possible,
we have made inquiries as to the sums which, in the opinion of re-
sponsible persons at each college, would suffice to place them in a position
to discharge their work with real efficiency. In each case we shall
mention two capital sums, the one that required to construct or com-
plete the buildings and equipment of the college, the other that required
as an endowment for maintenance, the interest in this latter case
being reckoned at 2J per cent. Aberystwyth has from the first been
the most fortunate of the three colleges in the matter of buildings, so
that its needs under this head are smaller ; similarly Bangor needs
slightly less towards maintenance as being possessed of somewhat larger
invested endowments, Cardiff and Aberystwyth having only very small
possessions of this kind ; trust-funds for scholarships are, of course,
disregarded altogether in the estimate.
The figures assume that the present Government grants will continue,
and under both heads state the sums needed in addition to all the re-
sources the colleges at present possess.
Funds needed for University Education in Wales.
A. For Buildings
and equipment.
1$. For Endowment.
rnivrr-ify ('nllr^-,
I'llivi-rsity <'>ll ;,'!,
I'nivrrsity College,
Tho UnivT>ity of
Aberystwyth
Banger
CardilT
Wales -
99,800
176,500
iti-j.ooo
1,071,500
960,400
1,176,400
288,400
Totals-
438,300
3,496,700
Grand Total ....
3,935,000
In round figures, therefore, we may say that university education
in Wales needs an endowment of 4,000,000 sterling to secure its
264 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.
efficiency. This will not be thought an extravagant figure when it is
remembered that the need of the Birmingham University was estimated
at 5,000,000, and that the Welsh colleges minister to the needs of a far
more diverse population. The agriculture, the manufactures, the
mining and the over-sea commerce of Wales all demand the enlighten-
ment and intelligence which can only be developed in universities
efficiently equipped for their work.
INDEX.
.
Abelard, 82.
Aberystwyth, University College
of, 2<:J.
Academies, International Associa-
tion of, 130.
Academy. British, 133.
Alcuin, 80
Appleton, Dr. , 206.
Appolonius, of Perga, 119.
Aristotle, 77, 106.
Armstrong, Prof., 53.
Army, training of the, 4, 151.
Arnold, Matthew, 89.
Astronomy, advances in, 113.
benefits from study of, 114.
in Chaldca and Egypt, 76.
B.
Bacon, Francis, 87, 107, 114.
Balfour, Mr. A. J., 182, 204, 209, 240.
Bangor, University College of, 263.
Beda, 79.
Berlin, University of, 231.
Birmingham, requirements of the
I'niversity or, 258.
science teaching in, 29.
Blackmar, Dr. Frank W., 248.
Blennerhasset, Sir Rowland, 243.
Brain-power, analogue of sea-power,
196.
an essential 179.
decline of, in Britain, 194.
developed in Navy Scheme, 159.
influence of, 173.
in l'rus<i;v, 2t:5.
in U.S.A., Germany and Britain,
Britain, apathy of the Government
in.
dei-line of initiative in, 121.
,, of brain-power in, 122.
,, of natural ri'somv
122.
lack of enthusiasm in. 2;~>7.
private munificence in, 253, 257.
starvation of I'niversit i-- in, 220.
stultifying conservatism in, 181.
British Association, 216.
functions of the, 177, 183.
power of the, 185.
suggested extension of the, 184.
British Empire, growth of the, 120.
British Science Guild, 186, 222.
Brodie, Sir Benjamin, 206.
Brunner, Sir John, 201.
' Burgher Schools " in Holland, 32.
Butler, Prof. N. M., 253.
C.
Cambridge, curriculum, 244.
Cardiff, University College of, 263.
Carnegie, Mr. Andrew, 210, 261.
Carnegie Institution of Washington,
261.
Chamberlain, Mr. J., 175, 180, 188,
193, 209.
Chemistry, decline of, in England,
92, 112.
developed in Germany, 72.
Chemicals, German production of,
117.
Chrystal, Prof., 54.
City Guilds, endowment by the, 40.
Coal-tar, products of, made in Ger-
many, 122.
Code, the new Education (1905), 235.
Cole, Sir Henry, 44.
College dc France, 85.
College dcs Trois Langues, 86.
College Endowments, application
of, 8.
College of Chemistry, foundation
of, 93.
Commerce, and Science, in Germany,
126.
State neglect of here, 63.
Commission, The Duke of Devon-
shire's, 208.
Committee on Scientific Education,
>
"Cramming," evils of, 55, 235.
Curzon, Lord, his Scientific Council
211,
D.
Darwin, Charles, 112, 123.
Derby, Lord, 45.
266
INDEX.
Devonshire. Duke of, 69.
Disraeli, Mr., 173.
Donnelly, Colonel, 29.
Drawing, importance of, 12, 25.
Dumas, 20,\
E.
Ecole Normale, foundation of the, 88.
value of the, 14.
Ecole sjjtcicde des Hautes Etudes, 206.
Education, a State duty, 229.
beneficent effects of, 34.
cost of primary and secondary,
193.
essentials of a modern, 228.
for all classes, 233.
in Parliament, 46.
in politics, 46.
in the Navy, 150.
national importance of, 122.
neglect of, in Britain, 188.
origin of compulsory, 84.
real basis of, 116.
results of imperfect, 188.
scientific, on the Continent, 3.
State neglect of higher, 191.
the ideal, 224.
the true aims of, 234.
What is the best, 234.
Egypt, 106.
Electricity, application of, 110.
Endowments, private, in U.S.A.
and in Britain, 192.
England, decline of, 122, 123.
neglect of research in, 6.
Eudemus, 81.
Ewing, Prof.. 162.
Examinations, evils of, 13, 16, 55,
237.
F.
Faraday, 205.
Fees, reduction of, 218.
Finance, of National Education, 201.
Fitzgerald, Prof., 68.
Foster, Mr., 48.
Foucault, Leon, 206.
France, educational renaissance after
Sedan, 203, 207.
support of research in, 6.
Francis I., of France, 86.
G.
Galileo, 107.
Geology, advantages reaped from
study of, 111.
Germany, Scientific Council in, 212.
commercial recognition of research
in, 73
enriched by our chemical dis-
coveries, 202.
financial statements of Univer-
sities in, 245.
ideal education in, 70.
knowledge valued in, 65.
organised science study in, 108.
reasons for advance of, 225.
results of research in, 126.
scientific training in, 117.
science appreciated in, 17, 181.
teaching commenced in,
88.
secondary education in, 31.
selection of naval officers in, 169.
State support of universities in,
191, 219.
true issue between England and,
117.
universities in, 35.
university courses in, 70.
incomes in, 195.
works chemists employed in, 125.
Giessen, practical teaching at, 91.
Giffen, Sir Robert, 201, 220.
Gladstone, Mr., 46, 47.
Gottingen, technical research at, 74.
Government, apathy towards science
of the British, 127.
Government Grant Committee,
The, 208.
Grammar schools, 37.
Greece, science in ancient, 78.
Greek and Latin, 227.
Gresham College, 87.
H.
Haldane, Mr., 212.
Handicraft, importance of, 25.
Hicks-Beach, Sir Michael, 152.
Hipparchus, 118.
Holland, secondary education in, 31,
32, 33.
Huxley, Prof., 11, 63, 115, 177, 237.
I.
of science
India, encouragement
211.
Indigo, German production of, 126.
Industries, causes of decline, 188.
" Industries Producing Council,"
need for, 67.
267
Industry and Science, interdepen-
dence of, 115.
Intelligence versus Memory, 21.
J.
Japan, advance of, 22.1. 231.
intellectual eflort of, 203.
State-aid to universities in, '219.
Jenkin, Prof. Fleeming, 3.
Jenner, Sir William, 113.
Judd, Prof., 95.
K.
Karl tlie (ireat (Charlemagne), 80.
Kepler, 119.
janguages, modern, 41.
modern and dead, 228.
Latin and (ireek, 227.
Leeds, University of, 195.
Leipzig 1 , technical research at, 74.
Levy, M. Maurice, 118, 123.
Liebier, 90.
Lister, Lord, 113.
Literature, need for organising, 140.
Lodge, Sir Oliver, 200, 258.
London County Council, 238.
London, new University facilities in,
239
Lot, M. Ferdinand, 243.
Louis XIV., and pure research, 205.
Luther, Martin, 28, 84, 108, 229.
Magnetism, and solar phenomena,
110.
Mahan, Capt., U.S.N., 196.
Manufactures, treated scientifically
in (iermany, 73.
Mathematics, beaching of, 55.
Mather, Sir William, 232. '
Mechanics, origin of modern, 119.
Meteorology, advantages reaped
from, 111.
Millis, Mr., 23s.
Mining, dependent upon study of
geology. 112.
Minister >f Srinn-e, need for, 68.
Minister of Public Instruction, 45.
Mond, Dr. Ludwiu'. 21<>.
Morley, Mr., 59.
Mundella, Mr., 3.
N.
Napoleon, Prince Louis, 206.
" National Scientific Council," need
for a, 210.
National Scholarships, 97.
National Physical Laboratory, 126.
Naval Architecture, School of, 95.
Navigation, importance of, in Navy,
161.
Navy, education in the, 150, 154.
entrance into the, 152.
promotion in the, 161, 166.
reorganisation of the, 196.
versus Universities, State support
of, 192.
Navy Bill, of 1888, 200.
Newton, 119.
Noble, Sir Andrew, 120.
Normal School, The, and London
University, 104.
O.
Ostwald, Prof., 65, 69.
Oxford curriculum, 244.
origin of University, 83.
P.
Palmerston, Lord, 203, 243.
Paris, University of, 83, 203.
Parsons, Mr., 109.
Pasteur, 113.
Patent Fund, Application of the, 8.
" Patent Law Amendment Act," 179.
Peace, need of preparations for, 213.
the wars of, 117.
;: Peace Council," need for a, 67.
Perkin, Sir W. H., 122.
Perry, Prof. Edward Delavan, 250.
Petersilie, Dr., 244.
Philosophy, and the Royal Society,
137.
PI ay fair. Lord, 50, 78, 208.
Pliny;, 107.
Politic ans, lamentable ignorance of
science among, 68.
Priestcraft, antagonistic to Science,
106.
Prince Consort, H.K.H. the, 51, 93,
108, 174, 214.
Production, of Industries, 67.
Prussia, founding of Universities in,
90.
importance of education recognised
in, 121.
/ -i iiaissatice of education in, 203,
243.
Privy Council, lack of scientific men
in, 64.
268
INDEX.
B.
Railways, introduction of, 110.
Ramsay, Sir W., 65.
Realschulen, The, 88.
Reformation, influence of the, 84.
Reichsanstalt, foundation of the,
126.
Religion, and education, 85.
Research, as important as battle-
ships, 209.
at the Royal College of Science,
101.
discouraged by University authori-
ties, 207.
endowment of, 66.
importance of, 5, 115, 119, 204.
in Germany, 62, 73, 244.
necessity for State-aided, 7, 194.
neglect of, in Britain, 6, 187, 204.
Roberts- Austen, Prof., 95.
Rolland d'Erceville, 88.
Rome, science in ancient, 79, 107.
Roscoe, Sir Henry, 122.
Rosebery, Lord, 180.
Royal College of Science, attributes
of, 100.
Royal Exhibitions, 97.
Royal Society, The, abrogation of
the true functions of, 148.
birth of, 87.
classification of Fellows of, 146.
functions of, 137, 139.
literary and antiquarian Presi-
dents of, 144.
proposed subdivision of, 132.
S.
Salerno, the first University, 81.
Salisbury, Marquess of, 172.
Samuelson, Sir Bernard, 18.
Scholarships, the 1851, 208.
School of Mines, foundation of, 93.
Science, a bar to naval promotion,
166.
a Government responsibility, 127.
and Art Department, 94.
Commerce, 115, 201.
in Germany, 126.
national wealth, 174.
Royalty, 58, 60.
Classes established, 96.
cosmopolitanism of, 118.
function of, 1.
Government need of, 179.
Government neglect of, 69, 128,
151, 175.
national, lack of organisation of,
182.
practical, in ancient Europe, 81.
Science (continued)
results of neglect of, 176.
Teachers, 100.
Selborne, Lord, 163.
Sidgwick, Prof., 131.
Siemens, Sir William, 35.
Siemens, Mr. Alexander, 244.
State- aid, in Britain, Germany,
U.S.A., and Japan, 219.
in Holland, 33.
State endowment, of Universities,
191.
State Universities, in America, 250.
Strassburg, University of, 191, 192.
"Struggle for existence," during
peace, 124.
Summer Courses, for Science Teachers,
100.
Symmington, applies steam to loco-
motion, 109.
T.
Teachers, in Training, 99. --"
Normal School for, 95.
Technical Education, defined, 12, 38.
fallacies concerning, 116.
Trade, follows brain-power. 180.
German replaces English, 62.
lack of State assistance to, 63.
Training, method of early, 117.
national dependence on scientific,
180.
Trevelyan, Sir George, 59.
" Two-Power Standard '' The,
applied to Universities, 197.
Tycho Brahe, 119.
TJ.
United Kingdom, number of Univer-
sity students in the, compared
with U.S.A. and Germany, 256.
United States, and Britain, compared
educationally, 232, 256.
educational awakening in the, 232.
endowments for education, 219,
248, 249, 253, 254.
ideal education in Western, 230.
increase of Universities, 121.
land grants for Universities, 249.
number of University students,
professors, and instructors in
the, 256.
progress in the, 52, 225.
scientific training appreciated in
the, 181.
University property and incomes
in the, 255.
INDEX.
University of London, 103, 239.
Universities, a State respnnsiMlity.
17<i, 19<).
complaints against the older, 68.
cost of required, 199.
function* of modern. J17.
in (i.-rniaiiy, 73, 191, '24.1.
lack of, in Britain, 187, 190, 194,
197.
neglect of science in, 107, 189.
number of, in Britain, U.S.A., and
Germany, 191.
original purpose of, 9.
private endowment of in U.S.A.
and Britain, 191.
State neglect of, in Britain, 190,
192.
Usher, Archbishop, 111.
Vaccination, beneficial results from
113.
Voltaire, 125, 239.
W.
Wales, University of, 262, 263.
War, effects of, 2.
commercial, 180.
War Commission Report. 17i>
Watt, 109.
William of Champeaux, 82
William of Malmesbury, 81.
Wren, sir Christopher, 87.
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