17 OCTOBER 1908, Page 9

OXFORD AND SCIENCE.

ON Thursday week, with modest pomp and appro- priate ceremonial, Oxford celebrated the Jubilee of the University Museum. There are few now living who can remember the struggle which raged over its erection; those who took even a humble part in the strife can be counted on the fingers of one hand; and the tale of its early history which Dr. Vernon Harcourt unfolded to a crowded audience in the Lecture Theatre came with all the force of novelty to the majority of his hearers. Yet October 8th, 1858, will always be a landmark of Oxford life and Oxford studies. It witnessed the formal in- auguration of a movement which, more than any single cause, has converted Oxford from a mediaeval to a modern University, and which, carrying her past shoals and back- waters, has kept her full in the tideway of national progress. It was difficult indeed for any one who wandered through the courts and corridors, and examined the admirably arranged collections and well-equipped laboratories, to realise the animosities, economical, theo- logical, and personal, which were aroused by the pro- posal, made as far back as July, 1847, to "erect an edifice within the precincts of the University for the better display of material illustrative of the facts and laws of the natural world?' The conservatism of unreformed Oxford, the zeal of "pure " scholars jealous of the new learning, the fears of excellent divines who held that the study of natural science " engenclered a temper of irreverence and arrogance inconsistent with a truly Christian character," were all fused into a stubborn resistance which it required no ordinary faith and perseverance and combativeness to break down. The fight for the Oxford Museum is one of the most stirring episodes in the annals of any University. Audit was right and meet that, both in the Sheldonian, and _within the walls of what was practically his own creation, due recognition should be paid to the protagonist in the struggle, the late Sir Henry Acland.

A young practising physician who had won no academic distinction, who had no reputation for scientific achieve- ment, whose position as Lee's Reader at Christ Church was unrecognised outside his own College, it was Acland who gradually wore down the forces of ignorance and prejudice. Early in his career the coachman of one of the Canons had thrown his anatomical preparations into the street because the smell was bad for the horses, and the action was condoned by the master. The veteran Dr. Buckland had coldly decried his first appeal on behalf of scientific teaching ; he was thwarted and hampered by the Christ Church authorities in his atti3mpt- to add. " demonstrations" to his anatomical leeturete; Vice-Chancellor Plumptre refused to acknowledge the Lee's Reader as a University teacher. But discourage- ment had no place in his vocabulary. By persistent effort he gathered round him a band of strenuous helpers, nearly all of whom, it should be remembered, were clergymen. Pusey was won over, and no influence but Acland's could have transformed him from an opponent into an ally. The University Commission gave the project their support, and the institution of the Natural Science School deprived the opposition of its main argument, an unexpected surplus from the Clarendon Press provided the funds, and the Museum was at last within the range of practical politics. Then came the "Battle of the Styles," and Oxford was rent asunder between Palladian and "Rhenish Gothic." The latter design was finally adopted, but Woodward's facade, now sheltered from the road by a generous growth of foliage, is still a bone of contention to residents and visitors alike.

In this, as in most other points, Acland had his way. He was resolved from the first that those who devoted themselves to the department of physical science "should not be worse housed, according to the ordinary standards of taste, than those who pursued their studies in the Bodleian or in the halls and chapels of our older Colleges." He would tolerate no hole-and-corner recognition of the new curriculum, and he justly regarded the condition of the dissecting-rooms in many of the hospitals, and the wretched accommodation provided for the medical students, as being responsible for much of the neglect into which physical science had fallen. But as the buildet's estimates mounted higher and higher the opposition revived. Members of Convocation were called upon to • non placet the whole scheme, and to destroy once for all "this Babylon of a new museum." "Have we any students in natural history ?" it was demanded. "Have we one farthing justly wherewith.to build or endow ? Are these the times for setting about such a folly ?" More liberal counsels prevailed, and in June, 1855, the foundation-stone of what its enemies called "the Cockatrice's den" was laid by Edward Geoffrey, Earl of Derby. But it was long before the dislike and mistrust of the Museum were entirely overcome, if, indeed, they are yet. For many years a policy of pin-pricks vexed the souls of Acland and Rolleston and their colleagues. On oneOccasion Convocation refused the burners for the gap- pipes which had just been voted, on another it cut off the sum required for oiling and varnishing the oak window- frames.

It may be doubted whether the pioneers of the Museum or the founders of the Honour School of Natural Science had any clear vision of the extent to which they were pledging the financial resources of the University, or of the fortress they were rearing in its midst. It had been vital to Acland's conception of the Museum that the masters of the various sciences should be brought together under the same roof ; but in the last half-century the sciences have multiplied and reduplicated themselves, while specialisation is driving its roots ever deeper and deeper. The apparatus of thirty years ago is as much out of date as the underground laboratories of the Ashmolean must have seemed to the early workers in the Museum. The University finances have been exhausted, and the princely generosity of private donors has been strained to keep abreast, not always successfully, of modern requirements; but still the cry of "Give ! give !" resounds from the busy hive of industry in the Parks. Happily the personal friction and the spirit of antagonism between the representatives of the different sciences, which at more than one epoch of its existence threatened to impair the practical usefulness of the Museum, have died away. The rapid increase of new departments within the walls, and the establishment of laboratories by several of the Colleges, have brought together a band cif teachers of whom not only Oxford but England may be proud, and who are becoming a power in the politics of the University which is scarcely suspected by the world at large. It was one of the most. cherished hopes of the founders of the Museum that it would draw closer. the ties between science and "Arts," used in the Oxford sense, and they believed that it would tend to a general and diversified culture rather than to positive achieve- ments and original work. The course of events has proved too strong. The Museum has become largely a school of research, and the need for specialisation at the

earliest possible age gives the candidate for honours in natural science scanty leisure for keeping up the Humanities. And in another direction also early ex- pectations have been disappointed. Just sixty years ago, in an open letter addressed to Dr. Jacobson, Acland had urged "the duty of introducing the elements of certain branches of natural knowledge into the list of studies necessary for all persons taking the degree of Bachelor in Arts." Whether such a scheme is practicable or desirable still remains open to question ; but we should be inclined to say that an elementary acquaintance with at least one science, and some evidence of ability to use our powers of observation, are as necessary accomplishments as the smattering of Greek and the modicum of geometry and algebra which Alma Mater now exacts from candidates for Responsions.

On the other hand, the Vice-Chancellor in his speech of welcome to the visitors made a statement which was doubly significant on the lips of so fine a scholar and so earnest a man of letters as Dr. Warren. Far from hindering the study of the classics in the University, he declared that the growth of the scientific spirit had given them renewed vitality. The methods of experiment and research were being applied, not only to the documents and the monuments of antiquity, but to the relics of Greek and Italian civilisation long buried beneath the earth ; and by an interesting coincidence, it fell to the lot of the Prime Minister, himself a typical, if magnificent, product of the old Oxford scholarship, to deliver, on the day following the Oxford celebration, the presidential address before the Classical Association, assembled this year at the youngest of our Univer- sities. His closing words form an eloquent commentary on the true relations between science and the classics :— "Mechanical theories and explanations no longer satisfy the well-equipped biologist or botanist, who has to deal with the problem of living matter, even in its most rudimentary form. In like manner the facile and attractive simplicity of many of the theories which have crystallised almost into dogmas, as to Greek origins, Greek religion, the order and development of Greek poetry, has had to yield to the sapping operations of the comparative method, and is found, in the setting of a larger scheme of knowledge, to be hopelessly out of perspective."