Dr. Appleton has been successful in getting his strenuous advocacy
of the "Endowment of Research referred to even in the Times, which on Monday took up the cudgels not so much to condemn what he proposes as to defend what he attacks. How- ever, the controversy has not as yet assumed a very useful form for the purposes Dr. Appleton has in view,—for which, we think, he has chiefly himself to thank. It has taken instead the form of a discussion as to whether it is a profitable thing for the nation that Universities should be endowed,—whether it would not be much better, both for the teachers and for the learners, that the University teachers should be paid in the ordinary way, just as barristers or physicians are paid, out of the means of those who want to see their children learned. We confess, while we are inclined to adopt Dr. Appleton's view on the question of the En- dowment of Research,—so soon as he and his friends can make out that it is really practicable to find a good test of powers of research that deserve endowment,—we differ from him toto ccelo on this secondary creed of his, which he has now injudiciously made the battle-field of his movement,—that the learning of the nation would not suffer by leaving academical teaching to be paid by the law of supply and demand. In our opinion, academical teaching, though enforced by University prestige, would be freely dispensed with by a very considerable number of young men who now obtain it, but have no means to pay either for legal or medical education. Dr. Appleton has indeed shifted his ground into the enemy's country ; but we fear he has invited disaster by his rash strategy.
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