The Scientific Basis of National Progress, Including that of Morality

That the practice of teaching is however of very great use in preparing the mind of a scientific man for research is quite certain, because it compels him to study all parts of his subject, and whilst doing so, many questions for investigation occur to his mind. Many of our most eminent discoverers have also been teachers. But teaching is not a necessary condition of success in research, nor even a necessary preparation for it; the examples of various able discoverers prove this. In some cases discoverers have devoted themselves to teaching, only after having attained high repute in research; in others they have not been teachers at all. Original research itself usually suggests plenty of new subjects of investigation, without the additional ones suggested by teaching.

In order that self improvement in a man of science might never stagnate, there should exist a continuous and complete series of steps of preferment, by which the merest beginners in scientific knowledge, might be enabled to attain to the highest scientific position; and finally become wholly occupied in that kind of labour by which their scientific faculties would be developed to their fullest extent, but this last step is wanting. By the proposed plan however a student would become a teacher; the teacher develope into a professor; and a professor might employ for a period a portion of his time in research, and thus become qualified for entire devotion to original investigation and discovery.

After a scientific teacher has acquired a thorough knowledge of his subjects, and a high position in his profession, his occupation becomes to him a species of intellectual routine, in which he is continually going through the same courses of lectures and examinations over and over again, and his personal improvement stagnates. But if there was remuneration for research, or there existed some post or employment, to which those who had acquired the ability to investigate might be appointed, there would be an inducement to continued intellectual improvement, and a sphere in which the most valuable faculties of scientific men might be developed for national benefit to their fullest extent.

3rd. Provincial Colleges of Research.– The success of this plan would depend essentially upon the diffusion of a knowledge of the importance of scientific research amongst the richer classes. There are at present a very few wealthy persons in this country who perceive to some extent the value of such research, and the dependence of their wealth upon it, who would be willing to contribute to a fund for the purpose; and there are many more who would assist if the importance of the subject was properly explained to them. The chief argument in favour of provincial colleges of research is, that it is a duty of wealthy persons to aid research, because they have derived, and are continually deriving great benefits from it, for which they make no payment. The ways in which some of those benefits have been derived have been already briefly stated. As the large manufacturers and capitalists are generally the persons who derive great pecuniary benefit from the progress of science, it might be reasonably urged that they should contribute freely towards its advancement.

Such an institution might be located in each of the largest centres of industry. The objects of the institution; the branches of science to be investigated in it; the number of professors, the mode of selecting them, and of excluding unsuitable candidates for the office; the means by which industry might be secured and jobbery prevented; the exclusion of invention, and of teaching and lecturing; the publication of results, removal of professors, etc., have already been treated of under the head of "State laboratories." The chief difficulties to be overcome in this, as in all other plans of aiding research, are to find a sufficient number of influential persons acquainted with the subject to practically carry out the plan; to secure investigators of high ability; and to prevent the offices being filled by incompetent persons.

4th. Aid to Professors of Science in Colleges.– Another way by which research might be promoted, would be by giving assistance in the form of a definite amount of additional salary, for the purpose of pure research, to professors and teachers in colleges and institutions; the money being supplied by the State or from the funds of the Institution. In carrying out this plan, it would be necessary to assist only those persons who had already published a good research, and thus proved their ability; and who would engage to devote a definite portion of their time to the labour as a part of their duty. The selection of suitable men might be made with the advice of the Council of the Royal Society. The additional salary should be entirely in the form of remuneration for labour, time, and materials, etc., expended upon research in pure science, and not in effecting inventions. The knowledge obtained should be treated as public property, and be published in the usual manner, and the investigator should not be permitted to sell or patent it. It would be necessary to provide that in case the investigator failed to make or publish a reasonable amount of good research, the additional salary should cease. Publication in the journals of the Royal Society, or in a leading scientific magazine, might be considered a sufficient proof of the satisfactory quality of the labour.

It is very desirable that all the higher teachers and professors of science in our educational institution should devote a portion of their time to original research. It would make their lectures more reliable, because research yields experience in the detection of error; whilst there is usually only one way of succeeding in making an experiment, there are always many ways of failing, and in the directions given in books, the latter are usually omitted. It would also induce the students to take a greater interest in the subject, and feel more respect for the teacher. The special excellence of the German system of teaching consists in the union of teaching and original research. This plan of aiding research would induce some of our teachers of science who have not yet made researches, to attempt such labour, it would also develope a superior class of scientific teachers generally; and produce a supply of candidates for professorships of research.

A great obstacle to the carrying out of this plan lies in the fact that in consequence of the ignorance of the value of original research by the founders of such Institutions, no definite provision usually exists in the Trust deeds to authorise the Trustees to devote any of the funds to such a purpose.

5th. Extension of the Government Grant System.– During a number of years the British Government has entrusted to the Royal Society the annual sum of £1,000 for the purpose of aiding science; and that sum has been given in varying portions to different investigators who have applied for grants in aid of their expenses in making investigations.

Although the total amount to be disbursed annually was not large, very few persons, qualified to make good researches, usually applied for its assistance, and it was difficult to dispose of the whole. The chief causes of this difficulty were: – a grant from the fund was an unprofitable gift to accept, because it was only sufficient to partly pay the expenses out of pocket for chemicals and apparatus, and allowed nothing for the skill, time, or labour, nor for payments made to assistants. Further, "By order of the Council, all instruments, apparatus, and drawings, made or obtained by aid of the Government Grants, shall, after serving the purpose for which they were procured, and in the absence of any specific understanding to the contrary, be delivered into the custody of the Royal Society."

By far the greater part of the expense of an investigation in physics or chemistry is the exceedingly large amount of time it occupies. Many necessary preliminary experiments have to be made, which yield either negative, unsuccessful, or incomplete results, and make the undertaking expensive. A good investigation in chemistry also not unfrequently costs the investigator a sovereign a day if he is wholly employed upon it. In some cases, for each £100 received as a grant, at least a £1,000, was directly and indirectly expended. Any person therefore who undertook a research became a loser, and aid from the Government Grant fund did not entirely cover his loss. Only scientific men who had other sources of income were able to avail themselves of the grants. The existence of the grants also was not widely known. The advantages of the plan were, it diminished the loss to the investigator, and the fact of being allotted a sum from the fund was considered highly creditable to the recipient.

In consequence largely of the evidence collected from eminent men of science from all parts of Great Britain, and the recommendations based upon it, by the Royal Commission for the Advancement of Science, the Grant system has been extended; our Government recently placed an additional amount of £4,000 a year, for five years, to be distributed in sums at the recommendation of the Royal Society to suitable applicants, and the five years have now elapsed.

This extension of the Grant system has been an improvement. It has resulted both in a large increase in the number of applicants and of researches; and has shown that there exists in this country a large amount of scientific ability in need of encouragement. The amounts granted were increased in magnitude so as to cover in some cases payments made to assistants and the entire outlay made for experiments, also a small payment for a portion of the time occupied in actual research. The plan of awarding the grants has been for work proposed by the applicants to be done, and not for that already performed. How far a retrospective method might be worthy of trial, is difficult to decide. It has been objected to it that the claims of scientific investigators for researches already made, would be so great and so convincing that it would be impossible to resist them, and the funds required to satisfy those claims would be so large as to render the plan quite impracticable; if however the retrospective period was limited to a short time, a year for example, the difficulty would be lessened. There would still however remain the great difficulty of valuing the results. This might probably be overcome by regulating the money payment according to the time, labour, pecuniary expenditure, and scientific status of the particular investigator, and leaving genius to be rewarded by the fame and honour of the results.

No system of aid however can place scientific investigation in a satisfactory position in this country, which does not include certain remuneration for time, money and labour expended; and no sound argument can be adduced why investigators should not be adequately recompenced. The genius alone of a discoverer should be rewarded by fame, and his time, labour, and expenditure, in accordance with his professional reputation, be repaid by money, as in all other intellectual occupations. The same amount of time and labour expended in any ordinary profession, requiring an equal, or even less amount of preparatory education and experience, and less rare ability, would yield an income of several thousand pounds a year. Although the lives of a few eminent discoverers have proved that it has been possible for them to do a considerable amount of research under the conditions which have existed, that is no reason why they should not be remunerated. Previous success in research has been due to the unusually great perseverance, industry, and self-denial of the men, and but little to any pecuniary encouragement received. The fewness of such men, supports this view of the case. The plan of aiding research by grants which include no certain payment for time or labour, is quite incommensurate with the importance of the subject and entirely unworthy of the reputation of a great nation.

6th. Students pursuing Research at the Universities. In the German Universities each student is required to make an original research before he can obtain a degree in Science, and the plan has worked successfully; also in the Victoria University, Manchester, several Fellowships have recently been established for the encouragement of students in original investigation.

If this plan could be carried out in our old Universities it would produce most valuable results, because the governing, wealthy, and influential classes of this nation are chiefly educated at those institutions, and they would then acquire habits of more accurate scientific thought, and some knowledge of the nature and importance of scientific research, and of the essential dependence of national welfare upon it.

But a great and probably insuperable obstacle exists to the carrying out of such a plan, viz., the wealth possessed by the parents of students. An original research cannot be made without considerable industry, and the greatest opponent of industry, especially with young men, is the possession or expectation of wealth. According to college tutors at our old Universities, there is no large class of industrious students at those institutions. The greatest cause of the idleness of the students is parental neglect and the habits of wealthy society. Many parents allow their sons too much money, and over-look too readily their idleness and frivolity; the young men also know their parents are rich, and act accordingly. Many persons send their sons to those places chiefly to form aristocratic acquaintances, and for other purposes than those of educational discipline and learning. The college authorities have also largely acquiesced in the wishes of the parents and students. And in this way scientific research has been almost entirely excluded from our old Universities. If the present tutors and governing bodies of those Institutions cannot induce students generally to be industrious, by what means can it be expected that these young men can be persuaded to exercise the still greater degree of industry and intelligence requisite to prosecute research, whilst they are decoyed from it by the attractions of wealth? In Germany the conditions are very different, the students in the Universities of that country have much less money at their disposal. Nearly the whole of the educational courses also at the Grammar schools and other educational institutions in this country, are formed upon the plan of sending all the superior scholars to our Universities, and thus the defective state of scientific training at the Universities operates through our whole scholastic system, and depresses the entire scientific instruction of the nation. It is evident that in this way the undue wealth of this country largely retards national progress.

7th. Local Endowment of Research Funds. In addition to the foregoing means, local efforts might be made to encourage research in each great centre of industry; through the medium of the local scientific societies. Nearly as early as the year 1660, Cowley in a treatise, proposed a Philosophical Society to be established near London, with liberal salaries to learned men to make experiments; but he could not get the money raised. A plan of this kind is in operation in Birmingham and carried out by the Council of the Birmingham Philosophical Society in accordance with the following: —

"Scheme for Establishing and Administering A Fund for the Endowment of Research in Birmingham."

"The Council are of opinion that this Society would be omitting a principal means of the advancement of Science – the end for which all such associations exist – if it neglected the question of the Endowment of Research. To maintain a successful investigator in his labours, even though no results of immediate or obvious utility can be shown to spring out of them, is of interest to the community at large. Indeed, it is just because the practical usefulness of such work is not immediate or obvious that it becomes necessary to give it special support, for otherwise it would have its own market value, and endowment would be superfluous. But the proper and effectual administration of an Endowment Fund is perceived to be so beset with difficulty, as often to deter even those who recognise the principle from advocating it in practice. Most of the dangers usually foreseen would, however, as a rule be avoided, simply by the distribution of such funds from local centres, under such a scheme as is now proposed. The Council, are therefore, anxious to establish a Fund, in connection at once with the Society and the Town, for the direct Endowment of Scientific Research."36

8th. Local Laboratories of Research. Another plan would be for local scientific societies to raise money by soliciting subscriptions and donations for the support of local laboratories; a prospectus of the following kind being issued: —

Proposal to Found A Laboratory of Pure Scientific Research in – .

"As the manufacturers, merchants, capitalists, land-owners, and the public generally, of this town and district, have derived and are still deriving great pecuniary and other benefits from the discovery of new knowledge by means of pure research in the sciences of Physics and Chemistry; and as in consequence of the great neglect of such research in this country, and the increased cultivation of it in other lands, our commerce is suffering, and a great many evils in manufacturing and other operations, in sanitary and many other matters dependant upon physical and chemical conditions, remain unremedied; it is proposed to found a Local Laboratory of original research in those sciences, with every suitable appliance in it; and to employ one or more investigators of repute, with assistants, who shall be wholly engaged in such labour in their respective sciences."

As it is largely the custom in this country to effect great objects by means of individual liberality and corporate enterprise, instead of trusting to State assistance, it is not improbable that when the great importance of scientific research and its claims to encouragement have become more generally known, that aid which has hitherto been with-held from it will be rendered by private generosity; and local institutions, wholly for the purpose of original scientific research will be established and supported by public-spirited wealthy persons. An institution of this kind upon a small scale, and called "The Institute of Scientific Research" has already been established in Birmingham, (see Note p. 40). By founding local institutions of this kind there exist opportunities for wealthy persons to do great good to mankind, and acquire renown as philanthropists by the action.

And 9th. In consequence of the great benefit derived from scientific research by the inhabitants of each locality, it has become a duty of each large community to promote it, and local Town Councils might with advantage and perfect justice to the public, devote a portion of municipal funds to the purpose of aiding local scientific research. To this plan it may be objected, that as the results of research are cosmopolitan, diffusing themselves everywhere, and this diffusion cannot be prevented; the benefits arising from research cannot be restricted even to a large community. In reply to this: – As knowledge and its advantages are cosmopolitan, the duty of promoting research must be equally extensive. There is also a real return received by the public for expenditure of money in research, in the free liberty to use all new knowledge developed everywhere by such labour, and although the money expended by a community upon particular researches or upon an individual investigator, does not directly produce an immediate return; practically an immediate and direct benefit is received by that community, because new scientific knowledge for the use of teachers and popular lecturers, and new inventions based upon it, of local value to that society, continually become public. Every civilized community has also received beforehand such benefits to an enormous extent; and each investigator may reasonably claim public support on the ground that he contributes to the general stock of new knowledge. Some persons however, who have not fully considered the subject, wish to receive not only the advantages accruing from the common stock of knowledge, but also to reserve to themselves the entire benefit arising from their own special contributions.

Experience alone will prove which of the foregoing schemes is the most suitable in this country, or in particular cases. At present the plan largest in operation is the system of Government Grants, next in magnitude are the other funds distributed by the Royal Society, the British Association, the Chemical Society, the Royal Institution, the Birmingham Philosophical Society, and those provided by the munificence of private individuals. It is greatly to be hoped that the liberal spirit of private individuals will yet further remove the great blot which lies upon the reputation of the wealthy manufacturers, capitalists, and land-owners, who have derived such great profits from scientific research and have scarcely aided it at all in return. It is also to be desired that the Corporations of manufacturing towns will recognise the value of original scientific enquiry to their fellow townsmen, and will undertake the responsibility of voting money from municipal funds to promote it.

1

See p.p. 165 to 167.

2

Essays and Addresses, Owen's College, 1874, pp. 172-182.

3

See Chapter 2, Section B.

4

In the year 1870, a gentleman of the name of Davis bequeathed £2,000 to the Royal Institution, London, to aid original scientific research.

5

As a notable exception to the above statement: – "Scientific research has now an Institute of its own in Birmingham, without being indebted to the public funds. A fund has already been collected for carrying on the work. The building is called 'The Institute of Scientific Research.'" See Nature, January 7th, 1881, p. 366; the Athenæum, February 5th, 1881, p. 204; the English Mechanic, p. 537, February 11th, 1881.

6

Professor Bache left 50,000 dollars, and Smithson bequeathed 541,000 dollars to this Institution.

7

Respecting the Members of our Houses of Legislature, a former Postmaster-General remarked to me, that a dose of scientific research would be too much for them.

8

The Victoria University has recently become a partial exception to this statement.

9

See "Royal Society Catalogue of Scientific Papers," vol. 5, pp. 719 and 890; and vol. 8, p. 1,010.

10

See Nature, April 24th and May 1st, 1873, pp. 485 and 13; also Work and Wages, by Brassey, pp. 170 and 178.

11

Note. – See "Work and Wages," by Brassey, p.p. 15-131 and 132; also the "Laboratory," vol. 1, p.p. 313-316, 378 and 380.

12

Note. – The whole of this chapter, especially the Moral Section, is capable of great amplification and much more copious illustration.

13

Note. – See also p. 95.

14

Note. – Athenæum, Aug. 3, 1877. p. 242.

15

"Wish and Will," by L. Turner, M.A.

16

"The Mutual Relations of Physical Science and Religious Faith."

17

Port Royal Logic, Discourse 1.

18

See p. 91-92.

19

See "Waste Products and Undeveloped Substances," by P. W. Simmonds.

20

See "Barometer Cycles," by Balfour Stewart, F.R.S. —Nature, Jan. 13, 1881, p. 237.

21

See p. 165, et seq.

22

It would I consider be an improvement in our educational arrangements, if a Professorial chair, solely devoted to teaching those laws and principles, existed in each Scientific College.

23

See vols. 1 (1872) 2 (1874) of the Reports of that Commission.