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ON THE INFLUENCE OF
RAIN-POWER ON HISTORY
AN ADDRESS
///<' British Association for f/ic Advancement of
>ce at Southport on September qth, 1903
BY
SIR NORMAN LOCKYER, K.C.B., LL.D, F.R.S.
OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE
FRESH i ISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OK SCIENCE
MAC MILL AN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1903
Price One Ski I ling' net
ON THE INFLUENCE OF
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY
263259
ON THE INFLUENCE OF
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY
AN ADDRESS
Delivered before the British Association for the Advancement of
Science at Southport on September gth, 1903
BY
SIR NORMAN LOCKYER, K.C.B, LL.D., F.R.S.
*
CORRESPONDANT OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE
PRESIDENT OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK I THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1903
, All rights reserved
PREFACE
SEVERAL friends suggested that I should issue my
Presidential address in pamphlet form. I thought it might
be useful to do this if it could be accompanied by the
data (which had been published in " Nature ") on which
a large part of the address is based. I therefore begged
Messrs. Macmillan and the writers of the articles to
grant me permission to reprint certain parts of them.
This was at once given, and 1 have to express my best
thanks for the favour thus extended to me.
NORMAN LOCKYER
1 6 Penywern Road^ S.W.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Address 9
Appendices :
1. The German Universities . 5 2
2. The Universities of the United States . .5?
3. The Requirements of the University of
Birmingham .
4. The Requirements of the Welsh University
and Colleges I 2
ON THE INFLUENCE OF
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY
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 English-
man 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 recognise 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 Salis-
bury'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 states-
man who also has given many proofs of his devotion
to philosophical studies, and has shown in many
utterances that he has a clear understanding of the
real place of science 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 unani-
mous nomination of your Council to be your President
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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 recog-
nised, 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 states-
men 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
am not thinking of the rise and fall of Empires, the
change of dynasties, the establishment of Governments.
T am thinking of those revolutions of science which
have had much more effect than any political causes,
which have changed the position and prospects of man-
kind more than all the conquests and all the codes and
all the legislators that ever lived." x
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
1 Nature^ November 27, 1873, vol. ix., p. 71.
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY n
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 fresh from the University of
Bonn. Hence the " Prince Consort's Committee,"
which led to the foundation of the College of Che-
mistry, and afterwards of the Science and Art Depart-
ment. 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 com-
mercial output of one country in one century as com-
pared 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 manu-
facture, as Mr. Carnegie has called her. Being the
great producers and exporters of all kinds of manu-
factured 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.
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 superiority as depending upon our first use of vast
material resources was reduced. Science, which is above
12 ON THE INFLUENCE OF
all things cosmopolitan planetary, not national in-
ternationalises 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 founda-
tions 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 resources, 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. Chamberlain next to nothing has been said
of the effect of the 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 England did not come till some
thirty or forty years after the removal of the corn duty
between 1847 an d 1849 gi yes 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 countries alike,
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 13
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 Universities more numerous and efficient our
mental resources would have been developed by im-
provements in educational method, by the introduc-
tion 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 strengthening 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 Univer-
sities 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 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
i 4 ON THE INFLUENCE OF
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
imperative 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 communities 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 instruction to our industries, Huxley pointed
out that we were in presence of a new " struggle for
existence," a struggle which, once commenced, must go
on until only the fittest survives.
It is a struggle between organised species nations
not between individuals or any class of individuals.
It 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 work-
shop 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 administration 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
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 15
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, " 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
resources 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,
is 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 anyone is under the impression that
Britain is only suffering at present from the want of the
scientific spirit among our industrial classes, and that
those employed in the State service possess adequate
brain-power and grip of the conditions 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 Brackenbury's
words applied to a part of it " unsuited to the requirements
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.
1 6 ON THE INFLUENCE OF
The nation itself is a gigantic workshop ; and the more
our rulers and legislators, administrators and executive
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 or superiority in Universities, scientific or-
ganisation, and everything which conduces to greater
brain-power.
Our Industries are Suffering in the present International
Competition.
The present condition of the nation, so far as its
industries 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 twentieth
century on which we have now entered, it is that it will
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 17
be one of acutest international conflict in point of trade.
We were the first nation of the modern world to dis-
cover 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 cha-
racter 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 any-
thing as to the urgency and necessity of scientific
training. ... It is not too much to say that the exist-
ence 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 com-
mercial and manufacturing rivals."
All this reters 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
manufacturers are too apt to be careless in securing
them. In one chemical establishment in Germany 400
doctors of science, the best the Universities there can
turn out, have 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
1 8 ON THE INFLUENCE OF
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 pre-
miums are too often preferred to those who are well
educated, and the old rule-of-thumb processes are pre-
ferred to new developments a conservatism too often
depending upon the master's own want of knowledge.
I should not be doing my duty if I did not point out
that the defeat of our industries one after another,
concerning which both Lord Rosebery and Mr. Cham-
berlain express their anxiety, is by no means the only
thing we have to consider. The matter is not one
which concerns 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 universal presence 'of the scientific spirit in
other words, brain-power our whole national life is
involved.
*The Necessity for a Body dealing with the Organisation
of Science.
The present awakening in relation to the nation's real
needs is largely due to the warnings of men of science.
But Mr. Balfour's terrible Manchester picture of our
present educational condition l 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
1 " 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 German and the Frenchman and
the Italian." Times, October 15, 1902.
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 19
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
Commerce 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 com-
mercial men do not use all the power their organisation
provides, do they not by having built up such an organ-
isation put us students of science to shame, 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
attention either of the public or of successive Govern-
ments. 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
consider such matters, and I have been driven to the
conclusion that our great crying need is to bring about
an organisation 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, in my opinion, is so urgently
needed. Quite recently I sketched out such an organ-
isation, but what was my astonishment to find that I had
been forestalled, and by the founders of the British
Association !
B 2
20 ON THE INFLUENCE OF
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
the objects of science and a removal of any disadvant-
ages of a public kind which impede its progress."
Everyone connected with the British Association from
its beginning may be congratulated upon the magnificent
way in which the other objects of the Association have
been carried out ; but as one familiar with the Association
for the last forty years I cannot but think that the object
to 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
leads me to the belief that the function I am now
dwelling on was strongly in the minds of the founders ;
but be this as it may, let me point out how admirably
the organisation is framed to enable men of science to
influence public opinion, and so to bring pressure to bear
upon Governments which follow public opinion, (i)
Unlike all the other chief metropolitan societies, its
outlook is not limited 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,
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 21
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
competent to deal with all matters, including those of
national importance, relating to science, but machinery
for influencing 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
number increased so as to include every scientific society
in the Empire, metropolitan and provincial, 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 com-
mittee 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,
some of which will be gathered from the following
extract :
" 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
22 ON THE INFLUENCE 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 that an official invitation on behalf of the
Council be addressed to the societies, through the cor-
responding 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 accrue 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 now
being appointed under the new Act. The education
section of the Association having been but recently
added, the corresponding societies have as yet not had
much opportunity for taking part in this branch of the
Association's work ; and in view of the reorganisation
in education now going on all over the country your
committee are of opinion that no more opportune time
is likely to occur for the influence of scientific organisa-
tions to make itself felt as a real factor in national
education "
I believe that if these suggestions or anything like
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 23
them for some better way may be found on inquiry
are accepted, great good to science throughout the
Empire 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 organise 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
membership of 630,000, and its income is nearly
2o,ooo/. a year. A British Science League of 500,000
with a sixpenny subscription would give us I2,ooo/. 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 it
will be strengthened by becoming completely effective
in every one of the directions they indicated, and for
which effectiveness we, their successors, are indeed
24 ON THE INFLUENCE OF
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
to the committee I have spoken of, if it please you
to appoint it. The British Association which, as I
have already pointed out, is now the chief body in the
Empire which deals with the totality of science is, I
believe, the only organisation of any consequence which
is without 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
properly 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 after-life. From neglect of research
comes imperfect education and a small output of new
applications and new knowledge to reinvigorate our
industries. From imperfect education comes the un-
concern 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.
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 25
Universities.
I have shown that, so far as our industries are
concerned, 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 employed 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 technical 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 com-
petition with other nations. At the present moment I
believe there is nothing more important than to supply
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 Univer-
sity 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
26 ON THE INFLUENCE OF
he had deserved the position that was offered to him.
What 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 intelli-
gence, 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." l
Our conception of a University has changed. Uni-
versity 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 farthing 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,
1 Times, November 6, 1902.
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 27
with the full approval of their teachers, on their way
through the school and the University to politics, the
Civil Service, or the management of commercial con-
cerns, is now one of the great necessities of a nation ;
and our Universities must become as much 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 competi-
tion 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 condi-
tions 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
education are now recognised as properly calling upon
the public for the necessary financial support. But
when we pass from primary to University education,
28 ON THE INFLUENCE OF
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.
We in Great Britain have thirteen Universities com-
peting with 134 State and privately endowed in the
United States and twenty-two State endowed in Ger-
many. I leave other countries out of consideration for
lack of time, and I omit all reference to higher institu-
tions for technical training, of which Germany alone
possesses nine of University rank, because they are less
important ; they instruct 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 regulate the production of brain-
power in the United States, 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 higher 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-equipped laboratories must take the
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 29
place of books and 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 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 forerunners of Universities unless we are
to perish from lack of knowledge, we find that private
effort during sixty years has found less than
4,ooo,ooo/. ; that is, 2,ooo,ooo/. for buildings, and
4O,ooo/. a year income. This gives us an average of
i66,ooo/. for buildings, and 3,3OO/. 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,
Universities and colleges have received more than
4O,ooo,ooo/. from this source alone ; private effort
supplied nearly 7,ooo,ooo/. in the years 1898-1900.
Next consider the amount of State aid to Universi-
ties afforded in Germany. The buildings of the new
University of Strassburg have already cost nearly a
million ; that is, about as much as has yet been found
by private effort for buildings in Manchester, Liver-
pool, Birmingham, Bristol, Newcastle, and Sheffield.
The Government annual endowment of the same
German University is more than 49,0007.
This is what private endowment does for us in
England, against State endowment in Germany.
But the State does really concede the principle ; its
30 ON THE INFLUENCE OF
present contribution to our Universities and colleges
amounts to 155,6007. a year. No capital sum, how-
ever, is taken for buildings. The State endowment
of the University of Berlin in 1891-2 amounted to
168,7777.
When, then, we consider the large endowments of
University 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 with-
out 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 13,000,0007. a year on primary educa-
tion, it certainly seems as if we might add a little more,
even a few tens of thousands, to what we give to
University and secondary education." l
To compete on equal grounds with other nations
we must have more Universities. But this is not all
1 Times, November 6, 1902.
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 31
we want a far better endowment of all the exist-
ing 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 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 relatively 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 muni-
cipalities 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
Germany have cost a million. For upkeep the yearly
sums found, chiefly by the State, for German Uni-
versities of different grades, taking the incomes of
seven out of the twenty-two Universities as examples,
are :
32 ON THE INFLUENCE OF
First Class . . . Berlin . . . 130,000
Second Class. . {g? ngen } . 56,000
Third Class. fef - 48,000
Fourth Class. . - * 37,ooo
Thus, if Leeds, which is to have a University, is
content with the fourth class German standard, a rate
must be levied of *]d. in the pound 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 have gone up from about is.
to about *js. in the pound for real local purposes. But
no University can be a merely local institution.
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. Fortu-
nately for us those days have passed away ; but some
twenty years ago, in spite of a large expenditure, it
began to be felt by those who knew, that in consequence
of the increase of 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
commerce was no longer insured at sea, that in relation
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
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 33
with a shrug of incredulity, and the peace-at-any-price
party denied that anything was needed ; but a great
teacher arose ; 1 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 agree-
ment 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 establish-
ing 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
programme, so that Britain and Britain's commerce
might be guarded on the high seas in any event.
Since then we have spent i2O,ooo,ooo/. 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 established by the Admiralty principle to
which I have referred ? Let us attempt to get a rough-
and-ready estimate of our educational position by
counting Universities as the Admiralty counts battle-
ships. I say rough-and-ready, because we have other
helps to greater brain-power to consider besides
1 Captain Mahan, of the U.S. Navy, whose book, " On the Influence
of Sea-power on History," has suggested the title of my address.
C
34 ON THE INFLUENCE OF
Universites, as the Admiralty has other ships to consider
besides ironclads.
In the first place, let us inquire if they are equal in
number to those of any two nations commercially
competing with us.
In the United Kingdom we had until quite recently
thirteen. 1 Of these, one is only three years old as a
teaching University, and another is still merely an
examining 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 with more than fifty professors
and instructors, and thirteen with more than 150. I
will take that figure.
Suppose we consider the United States and Ger-
many, 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
equalling in number those of two of our chief com-
petitors 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,
1 These are Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Victoria, Wales, Birming-
ham, London, St. Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Dublin,
and Royal University.
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY
35
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
comparison, 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 pros-
perity of a nation. I have already referred to the
views of Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Rosebery on this
point ; we know what Mr. Chamberlain 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 requir-
ing larger votes to guard our commerce and communi-
cations, 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
conditions on which its production and increase depend.
A glance could have shown that other countries were
building 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 " ?
c 2
36 ON THE INFLUENCE OF
What will they Cost ?
The comparison shows that we want eight new
Universities, 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, Liverpool, Leeds.
Let us take this number and deal with it on the
battleship condition, although a modern University on
American or German models will cost more to build
than a battleship.
If our present University shortage be dealt with on
battleship conditions, to correct it we should expend at
least 8,ooo,ooo/. for new construction, and for the pay-
sheet we should have to provide (8 x 50,0007.)
4OO,ooo7. 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., 24,000,0007.
At this stage it is important to inquire whether this
sum, arrived at by analogy merely, has any relation to
our real University needs.
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
personally 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 Germany. Even Oxford, our oldest University,
will still continue to be a mere bundle of colleges unless
three millions 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,
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 37
has shown in detail how five millions 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 adequate opportunity
of development.
How is this money to be raised ? I reply, without
hesitation, Duplicate the Navy Bill of 1888-9 do
at once for brain-power what we so successfully did
then for sea-power.
Let 24,000,0007. 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 Universities it
wishes to emulate. When this claim has been agreed
to, the sums necessary to provide the buildings and
teaching staff of that class of University should be
granted without demur.
It is the case of battleships over again, and money
need not be spent more freely in one case than in the
other.
Let me at once say that this sum is not to be re-
garded as practically gone when spent, as in the case of
a short-lived ironclad. // is a loan which will bear a
high rate of interest. This is not my opinion merely ;
it is the opinion of those concerned in great industrial
enterprises and fully alive to the origin and effects of
the present condition of things.
1 have been careful to point out that the statement
that our industries are suffering from our relative
neglect of science does not rest on my authority. But
if this be true, then if our annual production is less by
38 ON THE INFLUENCE OF
only two millions than it might have been, having two
millions less to divide would be equivalent to our having
forty or fifty millions less capital than we should have
had if we had been more scientific.
Sir John Brunner, in a speech connected with the
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, stated recently
that if we as a nation were now to borrow ten millions
of money in order to help science by putting up build-
ings 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 encouragement 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 i6,ooo,ooo,ooo/.
Were we to put aside 24,ooo,ooo/. for gradually
organising, building, and endowing new Universities,
and making the existing ones more efficient, we should
still be worth 15,976,000,0007. 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
stupidity, the reply is that the 1 2O,ooo,ooo/. 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 24,000,0007. is
less than half the amount by which Germany is yearly
enriched by having improved upon our chemical
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 39
industries, 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
Consort 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."
After Jena, which left Prussia a " bleeding and lacer-
ated 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 intellectual 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
education was developed, and in a few years the mental
resources were so well looked after that Lord Palmerston
defined the kingdom in question as " a country of
damned 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
" academies " in various places, was replaced by fifteen
independent 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 2OO,ooo/. a year.
40 ON THE INFLUENCE OF
But even more wonderful than these examples is the
" intellectual effort " 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 " intellectual 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
endeavour to bring about.
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 know-
ledge.
Its national importance apart from education is 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 pros-
perity 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:
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 41
" I do not believe that any man who looks round the
equipment of our 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, Switzerland, 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 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 is 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
1 Nature, May 30, 1901.
42 ON THE INFLUENCE OF
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 advantage which any educational system can
afford.
It is now more than thirty years ago that my atten-
tion was specially drawn to this question of the
endowment of research first, by conversations with
M. Dumas, the 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
" licole speciale des Hautes fitudes " ; 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. 1 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
1 See Proc. R. S., vol. xvii., p. Ixxxiii.
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 43
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 produce 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 2 Dumas's servant- in-
formed him that there was a gentleman in the hall
named 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 improvement 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. 1
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
1 In order to show how history is written, what actually happened
on a fateful morning may be compared with the account given by
Kinglake : ' Prince Louis rode home and went in out of sight. Then
for the most part he remained close shut up in the Elyse'e. There, in
an inner room, still decked in red trousers, but with his back to the
daylight, they say he sat bent over a fireplace for hours and hours
together, resting his elbows on his knees, and burying his face in his
hands.' Crimean War, vol. i., p. 245.
44 ON THE INFLUENCE OF
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. 1
In the year 1874 the subject was inquired into by
the late Duke of Devonshire's Commission ; and after
taking much remarkable evidence, including that of Lord
Salisbury, the Commission recommended to the
Government that the then grant of i,ooo/., which was
expended, by a committee appointed by the Royal
Society, on instruments 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,ooo/., 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,ooo/. 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 indis-
creet in me to state that when I proposed this new
1 See Nature, November and December, 1872.
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 45
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 of the meme inutile is more generally recognised
than it was during the times to which I have referred
in my brief survey ; and, indeed, we students are for-
tunate 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 ob-
vious, necessary, or immediate result the foundation
of the knowledge which shall give far greater happiness
to mankind than any immediate, material, industrial ad-
vancement can possibly do ; and I fear, and greatly fear,
that, lacking that imagination, we have allowed our-
selves to lag in the glorious race run now by civilised
countries in pursuit of knowledge, and we have per-
mitted 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." 1
" I would remind you that all history shows that
progress national progress of every kind depends
1 Mr. Balfour, Nature, May 30, 1901.
46 ON THE INFLUENCE OF
upon certain individuals rather than upon the mass.
Whether you take religion, or literature, or political
government, or art, or commerce, the new ideas, the
great steps, have been made by individuals of superior
quality and genius, who have, as is were, dragged the
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 Arm-
strongs, 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 pro-
ceedings. Therefore what we have to do, and this is
our special task and object, is to produce more of these
great men." 1
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 value we owe to Mr. Carnegie, for he has given
the sum of 2,ooo,ooo/. 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 in-
terest is the State, which certainly could not put the
i/8oooth part of the accumulated wealth of the country
to better use ; for without such help both our Univer-
1 Mr. Chamberlain, Times, January 18, 1901.
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 47
sities and our battleships will become of rapidly dwind-
ling importance.
It is on this ground that I have included the import-
ance 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 re-
quired 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
State 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 the application of the resources of modern science
to the economic, industrial, and agricultural develop-
ment of India has for many years engaged the earnest
attention of the Government of that country. The
Famine Commissioners 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
48 ON THE INFLUENCE OF
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 Govern-
ment, 1 providing among other matters for the proper
co-ordination 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, with so many external as well as internal
interests to look after problems common to peace and
war, problems requiring the help of the economic as
well as of the physical sciences.
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 Univer-
sities, the industries, and agriculture. It is small, con-
sisting 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 Univer-
sities, 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
1 Nature, September 4, 1902.
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 49
question 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 headdress of the Guards ? How, in the words
of Lord Curzon, 1 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
1 Times, September 30, 1902.
5 o ON THE INFLUENCE OF
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 the 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 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 deal-
ing 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, con-
tinuous, 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
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 51
interest can bring shall not be neglected as they are at
present.
Lest some of you may think that the scientific organ-
isation 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
successfully dealt with by the powerful arm of the State
or the long purse of the nation."
If the Prince Consort had lived to continue his
advocacy of science, our position to-day would have
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.
D 2
APPENDICES
(0
THE GERMAN UNIVERSITIES. 1
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
the 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 a result of
this policy, carried on persistently and continuously by suc-
cessive Ministers, aided by wise councillors, many of them the
products of this policy, such a state of things was brought
about that Palmerston, a typical English statesman, is stated
by Matthew Arnold to have defined the Germany of his day
as a country of " damned professors," and so well have the
damned professors done their work since that not long ago
M. Ferdinand Lot, one of the most distinguished educationists
of France, accorded to Germany <c a supremacy in science
comparable to the supremacy of England at sea."
The whole history of Prussia since then constitutes indeed
a magnificent object lesson on the influence of brain-power on
history. There can be no question that the Prussia of to-day,
1 Nature^ March 12, 1903.
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 53
the leader of a united 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 later years is the constant addition of new departments,
added to enable them to meet and even to anticipate the
demands made for laboratories 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 mem-
bers 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 obtain-
able in that nation. It is well, therefore, to see how we stand
in this matter.
The following tables will show what the German Govern-
ment 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-
54
ON THE INFLUENCE OF
I9S
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x/l O> O N N f^OO vO O
ir> t^cxf rf in rooo" i-T tC
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BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY
55
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1891-2.
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BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 57
being of the German State are as busily employed in increasing
the efficiency of their Universities as they are in adding to their
navy.
In Britain, there is no concern shown by our Government
and politicians 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 curri-
culum 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. 1
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 Government of the territory north of the
Ohio, provided that not more than two complete townships 2
were to be given to each State perpetually for the purposes of a
c< University to be applied to the intended object by the legisla-
ture of the State." In 1862 an Act was passed giving to each
State thirty thousand acres of land for each senator and repre-
sentative 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 respec-
tively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal education of the
industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of
life." ^
A reference to Table i. below, showing the number of acres
of land in each of the States, the income accruing from which
1 Nature, May 14, 1903.
2 In surveys of the public land of the United States, a division of
territory six miles square, containing thirty-six sections.
3 "Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 1896-7."
Vol. ii. p. 1145. (Washington, 1898.)
ON THE INFLUENCE OF
is available for University education, demonstrates more con-
clusively 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
TABLE I. Land Grants and Reservations for Universities.
States and Territories.
Acres.
Dates of Grant.
Ohio
69,120
1792 1803
Indiana,
46,080
1816, 1804
46,080
1804, 1818
Missouri . ....
46,080
1818, 1820
Alabama.
46,080
1818, 1819
Mississippi
4.6,080
1803 1819
Louisiana
46,080
1806, 1811, 1827
Michigan
46,080
1836
Arkansas
46,080
1836
Florida .
92,160
l84S
46,080
1845
\Visconsin
92,160
1846, 18^4
California .
46,080
1853
82,640
1861, 1857, 1870
Oregon
46,080
1859, 1861
Kansas . .
46,080
1861
Nevada
46,080
1866
Nebraska ....
46,080
1864
Colorado
46,080
1871;
^Washington
4.6,080
18^4, 1864
North Dakota!
46,080
1881
South Dakota/ '
Montana
46,080
1881
Arizona Territory
Idaho Territory
46,080
46,080
1881
1881
^Vyoming Territory
46,080
1881
New Mexico Territory
46,080
l8"?4
Utah Territory
46,080
1855
Total
1,395,920
and State Aid to Higher Education in the United States,"
published in Washington in 1890.
The grant of 1862 proved insufficient, and in 1890 an Act
for the u more complete endowment of the institutions called
into being or endowed by the Act of 1862 " was passed.
But these land grants do not exhaust the means adopted by
the State to encourage higher education in the United States.
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 59
In the book to which reference has been made, Dr. Blackmar
summarises the principal ways in which the several States have
aided higher education. They are as follows :
(1) By granting charters with privileges.
(2) By freeing officers and students of colleges and Univer-
sities from military duties.
(3) By exempting the persons and properties of the officers
and students from taxation.
(4) By granting land endowments.
(5) By granting permanent money endowments by statute
law.
(6) By making special appropriations from funds raised by
taxation.
(?) 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, 1 " 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 administrative 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, Washing-
ton, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
" The universal verdict of public opinion in the States where
such institutions are maintained is that they, as State organisa-
tions supported directly by public taxation from which no tax-
able individual is exempt, should be open without distinction
of sex, colour, or religion to all who can profit by the instruc-
tion therein given."
The figures necessary to express how much University edu-
cation in the United States owes to the American Govern-
ment are large, and the total amount of the aid is enormous.
The following table, drawn up with the assistance of the
Report of the U.S. 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
1 See Prof. Nicholas Murray Butler's monographs on " Education
in the United States," vol. i.
6o
ON THE INFLUENCE OF
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62
ON THE INFLUENCE OF
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 18901901, the amount of these donations reached the
grand total of nearly 23,000,0007., as Table iii., compiled by
Prof. Nicholas Murray Butler, shows :
TABLE III. Total amount of Benefactions ** to Higher Education in the
United States.
Reported in
1890-91
1891-92
1892-93
1893-94
1894-95
1895-96
,
1,515,018
1,336,917
1,343,027
1,890,101
1,199,645
I,8lO,O2I
Reported in
1896-97
1897-98
1898-99
1899-1900
1900-01
1,678,187
1,640,856
4,385,087
2,399,092
3,608,082
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 U.S. Bureau of Education show,
16,285,0007., so that for the years 1871-1901, the grand total
of forty millions 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 munifi-
cence, 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 " Reports from Uni-
versity Colleges, 1901," published by the Board of Education,
reveal the fact that, including the 400,0007. raised for the
University of Birmingham, the benefactions to the fifteen Uni-
versity Colleges in Great Britain amounted during 1870-1900
1 Compiled by Prof. Nicholas Murray Butler, Columbia University,
and published in " Special Reports on Educational Subjects," vol. xi.
part ii.
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY
to a little more than three millions. In the absence of system-
atic 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 received 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 time,
excluding Mr. Carnegie's splendid gift, may be put at some-
thing under half a million, so that for the whole of the United
Kingdom the total amount of endowment from private sources
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
I
8
5
3
4
4
I
2
raised in these years may, without any risk of under-estimation,
be said to be considerably less than five millions.
To give some idea of the result of the broad-minded policy
of the legislatures of the several States and of the treatment
which higher 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 18991900. The
first (Table iv.) shows the number of colleges having endow-
ments 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
20,000 t
o 40,000
40,000
60,000
60,000
80,000
80,000
100,000
100,000
120,000
120,000
140,000
140,000
160,000
160,000
180,000
180,000
200,000
200,000
250,000
250,000
300,000
300,000
400,000
400,000
600,000
600,000
800,000
800,000
1,000,000
1,000,000
1,500,000
1,500,000
2,000,000
Over 2,000,000
64
ON THE INFLUENCE OF
li
s,
1
^00
81
MS I
B,
*
o
Is
00
tutu
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY
scholarships ; values of libraries, apparatus, grounds and build-
ings ; 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 University Colleges includes all
above the age of sixteen, which is probably much lower than
TABLE VII. Professors, Instmctors and Students in Universities and
Colleges of United States.
Institutions.
Professors and Instructors. 1
Men.
Women.
For
For
men and for both sexes (480
institutions)
women (141 institutions)
12,664
697
1,816
1,744
Students.
Men.
Women.
Total number of students in Uni-
versities and colleges...
61,800
35,300
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 the 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 comparisons as simple as
possible the number of University students per ten thousand of
population has been calculated.
The statistics provided above make it possible to form a good
estimate of the comparative amounts of importance attached to
1 Excluding duplicates.
66
ON THE INFLUENCE OF
higher education in this country and in the United States.
Table vi. shows that, neglecting the income accruing from the
State land grants, the legislatures of individual States and the
U.S. Government together supplied about 900,0007. for Uni-
versity education during 1899-1900, while the article
in
NATURE for March 12, 1903, shows that the total State aid to
Universities and colleges in the United Kingdom at present
amounts only to 155,6007. Table vi. also brings out another
important principle ; it reveals the fact that during 1899-1900
TABLE VIII.-
- Number of University St^^dents per 10,000 of Population
(1900).
Country.
Population.
Number of Students.
i|:l
United Kingdom
41,164,000
Universities
University"!
Colleges/
Day.
12,000
8,500
Evening
5,000
4-98 i
German Empire
United States
56,367,000
76,086,000
44,400
97,100
7-87
1276
private effort provided more 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 industrial 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 the directors of German
industries, and how greatly superior is the provision made for
this purpose in Germany to that in this country. A similar
conclusion is reached by studying the subject from the
American point of view ; we are equally behind the United
States. Unless our Government, on one hand, and our men of
1 Excluding evening students of University Colleges.
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 67
wealth on the other, take immediate steps, and make serious
efforts to remedy these deficiencies in our higher education,
British manufacturers cannot hope to hold their own success-
fully 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 munifi-
cence 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 no-
thing corresponding to the land grants.
(3) In the United States there are 170 colleges with an
endowment of more than 2O,ooo/. ; forty-nine of these have
endowments of more than ioo,ooo/., and three of more than
two millions sterling. In the United Kingdom there are
thirteen Universities and twenty other University Colleges.
Four of the Universities do little more than examine.
(4) In the United States nearly thirteen of every ten
thousand 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 for similar purposes raised during thirty
years in the whole of the United Kingdom. The same is
nearly true in the States of Massachusetts and of California.
(6) The number of 'professors and instructors at the Universities
and colleges included in the list of the U.S. 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
E 2
68 ON THE INFLUENCE OF
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. 1
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
u Survey of the Sciences," which forms an appendix to a paper
on University Development, is of especial importance 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, and there the problem
became so complicated 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 forth-
coming great educational development of the future, enabling
1 Nature^ January i, 1903.
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 69
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 five millions 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 scientific
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 applica-
tions, the pamphlet concludes as follows :
" In venturing to name such a sum as five millions, 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 to do with administration, that every new department
started, and every 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 experiments 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 demonstrators
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 them, 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 which, with the im-
provement of schools, will probably be rapidly increasing.
70 ON THE INFLUENCE OF
Hence it is probable that the above-mentioned items of annual
expenditure will absorb the whole of the ordinary annual in-
come 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
iooo/. a year, and in some subjects more.
" An invested million will therefore on the average relieve the
annual income of the stipends for 30 principal chairs. There
must be a large number of Lectureships, or subsidiary and
supplemental chairs, and 60 of these at 5OO/. 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 million at least will be
needed to equip them properly.
" The older or central site will also need considerable enlarge-
ment, 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 in 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 sometimes try experiment
on a very extensive scale indeed a really commercial 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
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 71
for each would permit of no extravagance. Some of the experi-
ments 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, 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 scattereth 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 wholesome enough for the in-
dividual, 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, fol-
lowing 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
72 ON THE INFLUENCE OF
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 ten million dollars,
I extract the following altogether admirable statement of
' aims ' :
" c i. To promote original research : paying great attention
thereto, as one of the most important of all departments.
u c 2. To discover the exceptional man in every department
of study, whenever and wherever found, inside or outside of
schools ; 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 UNIVER-
SITY AND COLLEGES. 1
We saw that the great bulk of the endowments of the
German Universities 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 heaithy but disproportionate effort, from the shil-
lings 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 Aberystwyth must in
l Nature, July 16, 1903.
BRAIN-POWER COST "HISTORY 73
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 1 as follows, reckoning the interest on investments,
as heretofore, at i\ per cent., and including in the Govern-
ment grants those devoted to special objects, such as agricul-
ture, and the training of primary teachers.
Present Endowment of University Education in Wales.
Income from
Private
Endowments.
University College, Aberystwyth 375
University College, Bangor ... 1225
University College, Cardiff 750 2
The University of Wales ... ... ...
Totals 2350
Percentages 10
Income from
Government
Grants.
6000
6000
5250
4000
21,250
90
There is only one conclusion. In great cities like Liverpool
and Manchester there is accumulated wealth and an accumu-
lated tradition of culture to which their colleges have appealed
with some success. In Wales the culture has been for cen-
turies remote from University life, and the wealth, as we have
seen, is non-existent. If, therefore, the Government wishes
that the 2i,ooo/. a year which it now spends in grants to 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 responsible 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 complete 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 1\ per cent. Aberystwyth has from the
1 The exact figures vary slightly from year to year.
2 Including the annual grant of 3 so/, from the Drapers' Company
for engineering.
74
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY
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 resources the colleges at present possess.
Funds needed for University Education in Walts.
A. For Buildings
and equipment.
B. For Endowment.
University College, Aberystwyth
University College, Bangor ...
University College, Cardiff
The University of Wales
99,800
176,500
l62,OOO
1,071,500
960,400
1,176,400
288,400
Totals
/d.38 300
/"3.4.Q6.7OO
Grand total ..
/"3.Q*
In round figures, therefore, we may say that University edu-
cation in Wales needs an endowment of four millions sterling
to secure its efficiency. This will not be thought an extra-
vagant figure when it is remembered that the need of the
Birmingham University was estimated at five millions, 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
enlightenment and intelligence which can only be developed
in Universities efficiently equipped for their work.
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