SIR N. LOCKYER AND TRAINED SCIENTISTS. [TO THE EDITOR OF
THE " SPECTATOR."] 311E,—In common, I imagine, with most Englishmen who think about the future of their country, I was much moved by Sir Norman Lockyer's recent address to the British Associa- tion. But while sympathising strongly with his object, I was at once assailed by doubt whether he had adopted the best means of achieving it. Much to my astonishment, I find that aiy vague thoughts on the subject have been shared by an American, who has given them definite shape in the following passage extracted from the New York Nation :- "Is it possible that Sir Norman Lockyer displays an under- standing of British human nature, in endeavouring to stimulate it to vast expenses for universities, by pointing out that in this respect that country is far behind Germany and America ? If such were the best argument to use, England would be looking into a dismal future. What people conscious of ;Teat vitality and genius was ever fired with the idea of following in the wake of others ? One would not find much response to such an appeal in Washington, nor in Paris. Would not Sir Norman do better to address his countrymen in some such language as this ? For the last three centuries every single idea of really sovereign preeminence in science has been largely (in most cases undisputedly) of British paternity : the Inductive Philosophy, the Corpuscular Theory, Attraction, the Differential Calculus, the Atomic Theory (and the type theory of chemistry), Natural Selection, the Mechanical Theory of Heat (or that first principle of it which was the solid core of the great doctrine of the Correlation and Conservation of Forces), the Theory of Light as transverse vibrations, followed up by the true Theory of Electricity, the Electro-magnetic Theory of Light, and the Electron Theory of Matter. The new science of radiations, if it has importance enough to be mentioned in this connection, has grown directly and uninterruptedly out of Crookes's experiments. To continue these services to civilization is no more than our plain duty. Noblesse oblige. They must be continued ; they will be continued. British soil is fertile in men of the highest types of genius. It shall not be found that their fruit is not forth- coming because Great Britain's purse was not long enough to sustain British science against foreign competition.' The above are the sober facts ; they will bear scrutiny. If they were put before the British Parliament and the country, would not patriotism be moved ? "
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