LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
Sni,—In a recent number, while expressing your opinion that Dr. Appleton's scheme for the Endowment of Research was deserving of serious consideration, you suspend your own judg- ment, owing to the apparent difficulty of selecting the men, in the first instance, to whom research should be entrusted. This difficulty must dearly seem to be a very serious obstacle, because one of your contemporaries, who not rarely finds itself in an attitude widely remote from sympathetic with the opinions ex- pressed in your columns, is content to sum up the matter by reprinting your note.
Your criticism obviously carries the more weight, when taken in relation with a rather vigorous protest against Dr. Appleton's competence to intervene in the matter, which has appeared from a scientific man who holds a foremost place amongst those who have both promoted and personally carried on research in this country. But it has never been held that a critic, say, of a picture, must be as technically competent as the artist to criticise, or hold his peace; and I for one, knowing something of what research is, have no hesitation in saying both that Dr. Appleton's scheme is a perfectly feasible one, and that in the interests of science in this county it would be very desirable that it should be in some shape at least carried out.
It would make too great a demand on your apace to attempt to discuss the question what should be the relation of endowed Research to the State generally, but in the present case the pro- blem is confined within quite distinct limits. Our Universities, though in point of fact little better than "finishing-schools," have always held the dignity and status of "seats of learning." There is clearly, therefore, nothing new in demanding that advanced studies shall be prosecuted there, and that young men shall be encouraged to widen the area of knowledge without immediate and persistent anxiety as to their own material welfare in so doing. Nor can it be urged that the use of the funds which might be applied to sustaining them is fundamentally different from that for which those funds were originally intended.
All that need, therefore, really be considered is that research should actually be promoted by the plan that Dr. Appleton pro- poses. It seems to me that if we clearly understand what we are to expect, it is quite as certain that such an effect will be pro- duced, as it is that amongst the men of any one year at either University, a certain number will be competent to write good Latin prose or comprehend the calculus of operations.
Any Professor who is au niveau with his subject—and it is needless, I suppose, to assume that this would be usually the case with Professors in a University--constantly notes in his mind small matters, often details in a subject the outline of which is tolerably clearly marked out, on which Nature requires close and careful interrogation. In the present state of science, the plan and method of interrogation in different branches are pretty clearly known, and indeed form a large part of technical scientific in- struction. The advanced student starting on the path of research will, therefore, have his work, so to speak, cut out for him, if the Professor puts some such matter into his hands, with the request that he will ascertain whether some given question about it can be answered in the affirmative or negative. All that has to be done is to use the proper methods with due patience and adequate in- telligence. The result, positive or negative, is.a scientific result, and the aggregate of such results is the kind of stuff of which the foundation of modern science is compact. After carrying out several " researches " of this kind, some point will in all proba- bility occur which will seem to open up possibilities of some unforeseen and entirely new result. The student has, in fact, found the path into the unknown land.
Now, what I have tried to sketch is not a mere dream of what might be, but is what actually is going on in laboratories and experimental stations all over Europe, but scarcely at all in England. But in England one distinct reason why it does not go on is because it does not supply any means of subsistence ; and men will take to teaching in schools, to parish work, to commercial pursuits, to anything which gives occupation, congenial or not. A few with means of some sort or other still prosecute research, and if some of these are failures, it arises not because scientific success is so precarious, but because to, them scientific work happens to be unsuited. Every profession has its bad bargains, and it might as well be urged that we should have no officers to
THE ENDOWM_ENT OF RESEARCH.
[TO THE EDITOR OF 'THE SPECTATOR:]
our armies because incompetence in military matters has some- times led to disasters, as that we shall have no endowments to support research because some students in science have mistaken their vocation. But taking matters at the worst, incompetence would, under Dr. Appleton's scheme, be speedily sifted out, while the men who remained would in process of time drift off to places of instruction where teachers were needed, or succeed to higher posts in the University.—I am, Sir, &c., W. T. THISELTON DYER.
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