UC-NRLF 
 
 It, bDS 
 
ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 RAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 ///<' British Association for f/ic Advancement of 
 >ce at Southport on September qth, 1903 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR NORMAN LOCKYER, K.C.B., LL.D, F.R.S. 
 
 OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE 
 FRESH i ISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OK SCIENCE 
 
 MAC MILL AN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1903 
 
 Price One Ski I ling' net 
 
ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 
 
 263259 
 
ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 Delivered before the British Association for the Advancement of 
 Science at Southport on September gth, 1903 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR NORMAN LOCKYER, K.C.B, LL.D., F.R.S. 
 
 * 
 
 CORRESPONDANT OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE 
 PRESIDENT OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 NEW YORK I THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1903 
 
 , All rights reserved 
 
PREFACE 
 
 SEVERAL friends suggested that I should issue my 
 Presidential address in pamphlet form. I thought it might 
 be useful to do this if it could be accompanied by the 
 data (which had been published in " Nature ") on which 
 a large part of the address is based. I therefore begged 
 Messrs. Macmillan and the writers of the articles to 
 grant me permission to reprint certain parts of them. 
 This was at once given, and 1 have to express my best 
 thanks for the favour thus extended to me. 
 
 NORMAN LOCKYER 
 1 6 Penywern Road^ S.W. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Address 9 
 
 Appendices : 
 
 1. The German Universities . 5 2 
 
 2. The Universities of the United States . .5? 
 
 3. The Requirements of the University of 
 
 Birmingham . 
 
 4. The Requirements of the Welsh University 
 
 and Colleges I 2 
 
ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 
 
 MY first duty to-night is a sad one. I have to refer 
 to a great loss which this nation and this Association 
 have sustained. By the death of the great English- 
 man and great statesman who has just passed away 
 we members of the British Association are deprived 
 of one of the most illustrious of our past presidents. 
 We have to mourn the loss of an enthusiastic student 
 of science. We recognise that as Prime Minister he 
 was mindful of the interests of science, and that to 
 him we owe a more general recognition on the part of 
 the State of the value to the nation of the work of 
 scientific men. On all these grounds you will join in 
 the expression of respectful sympathy with Lord Salis- 
 bury's family in their great personal loss which your 
 Council has embodied this morning in a resolution of 
 condolence. 
 
 Last year, when this friend of science ceased to be 
 Prime Minister, he was succeeded by another states- 
 man who also has given many proofs of his devotion 
 to philosophical studies, and has shown in many 
 utterances that he has a clear understanding of the 
 real place of science in modern civilisation. We, then, 
 have good grounds for hoping that the improvement in 
 the position of science in this country which we owe 
 to the one will also be the care of his successor, who 
 has honoured the Association by accepting the unani- 
 mous nomination of your Council to be your President 
 
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 next year, an acceptance which adds a new lustre to 
 this Chair. 
 
 On this we may congratulate ourselves all the more 
 because I think, although it is not generally recog- 
 nised, that the century into which we have now well 
 entered may be more momentous than any which has 
 preceded it, and that the present history of the world 
 is being so largely moulded by the influence of brain- 
 power, which in these modern days has to do with 
 natural as well as human forces and laws, that states- 
 men and politicians will have in the future to pay 
 more regard to education and science as empire-builders 
 and empire-guarders than they have paid in the past. 
 
 The nineteenth century will ever be known as the one 
 in which the influences of science were first fully 
 realised in civilised communities ; the scientific progress 
 was so gigantic that it seems rash to predict that any of 
 its successors can be more important in the life of any 
 nation. 
 
 Disraeli, in 1873, referring to the progress up to that 
 year, spoke as follows : " How much has happened in 
 these fifty years a period more remarkable than any, 
 I will venture to say, in the annals of mankind. I 
 am not thinking of the rise and fall of Empires, the 
 change of dynasties, the establishment of Governments. 
 T am thinking of those revolutions of science which 
 have had much more effect than any political causes, 
 which have changed the position and prospects of man- 
 kind more than all the conquests and all the codes and 
 all the legislators that ever lived." x 
 
 The progress of science, indeed, brings in many con- 
 siderations which are momentous in relation to the life 
 of any limited community any one nation. One of 
 these considerations to which attention is now being 
 greatly drawn is that a relative decline in national 
 1 Nature^ November 27, 1873, vol. ix., p. 71. 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY n 
 
 wealth derived from industries must follow a relative 
 neglect of scientific education. 
 
 It was the late Prince Consort who first emphasised 
 this when he came here fresh from the University of 
 Bonn. Hence the " Prince Consort's Committee," 
 which led to the foundation of the College of Che- 
 mistry, and afterwards of the Science and Art Depart- 
 ment. From that time to this the warnings of our 
 men of science have become louder and more urgent in 
 each succeeding year. But this is not all ; the com- 
 mercial output of one country in one century as com- 
 pared with another is not alone in question ; the 
 acquirement of the scientific spirit and a knowledge and 
 utilisation of the forces of Nature are very much 
 further reaching in their effects on the progress and 
 decline of nations than is generally imagined. 
 
 Britain in the middle of the last century was certainly 
 the country which gained most by the advent of science, 
 for she was then in full possession of those material 
 gifts of Nature, coal and iron, the combined winning 
 and utilisation of which, in the production of machinery 
 and in other ways, soon made her the richest country in 
 the world, the seat and throne of invention and manu- 
 facture, as Mr. Carnegie has called her. Being the 
 great producers and exporters of all kinds of manu- 
 factured goods, we became eventually, with our iron 
 ships, the great carriers, and hence the supremacy of 
 our mercantile marine and our present command of 
 the sea. 
 
 The most fundamental change wrought by the early 
 applications of science was in relation to producing 
 and carrying power. With the winning of mineral 
 wealth and the production of machinery in other 
 countries, and cheap and rapid transit between nations, 
 our superiority as depending upon our first use of vast 
 material resources was reduced. Science, which is above 
 
12 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 all things cosmopolitan planetary, not national in- 
 ternationalises such resources at once. In every market 
 of the world 
 
 " things of beauty, things of use, 
 Which one fair planet can produce, 
 Brought from under every star," 
 
 were soon to be found. 
 
 Hence the first great effect of the general progress of 
 science was relatively to diminish the initial supremacy 
 of Britain due to the first use of material resources, 
 which indeed was the real source of our national wealth 
 and place among the nations. 
 
 The unfortunate thing was that, while the founda- 
 tions of our superiority depending upon our material 
 resources were being thus sapped by a cause which was 
 beyond our control, our statesmen and our Universities 
 were blind leaders of the blind, and our other asset, our 
 mental resources, which was within our control, was 
 culpably neglected. 
 
 So little did the bulk of our statesmen know of the 
 part science was playing in the modern world and of 
 the real basis of the nation's activities that they 
 imagined political and fiscal problems to be the only 
 matters of importance. Nor, indeed, are we very much 
 better off to-day. In the important discussions recently 
 raised by Mr. Chamberlain next to nothing has been said 
 of the effect of the progress of science on prices. The 
 whole course of the modern world is attributed to the 
 presence or absence of taxes on certain commodities in 
 certain countries. The fact that the great fall in the 
 price of food-stuffs in England did not come till some 
 thirty or forty years after the removal of the corn duty 
 between 1847 an d 1849 gi yes them no pause ; for 
 them new inventions, railways, and steamships are 
 negligible quantities ; the vast increase in the world's 
 wealth, in Free Trade and Protected countries alike, 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 13 
 
 comes merely, according to them, in response to some 
 political shibboleth. 
 
 We now know, from what has occurred in other 
 States, that if our Ministers had been more wise and 
 our Universities more numerous and efficient our 
 mental resources would have been developed by im- 
 provements in educational method, by the introduc- 
 tion of science into schools, and, more important than 
 all the rest, by the teaching of science by experiment, 
 observation, and research, and not from books. It is 
 because this was not done that we have fallen behind 
 other nations in properly applying science to industry, 
 so that our applications of science to industry are 
 relatively less important than they were. But this is 
 by no means all ; we have lacked the strengthening of 
 the national life produced by fostering the scientific 
 spirit among all classes and along all lines of the 
 nation's activity ; many of the responsible authorities 
 know little and care less about science ; we have not 
 learned that it is the duty of a State to organise its 
 forces as carefully for peace as for war ; that Univer- 
 sities and other teaching centres are as important as 
 battleships or big battalions ; are, in fact, essential parts 
 of a modern State's machinery, and, as such, to be 
 equally aided and as efficiently organised to secure its 
 future well-being. 
 
 Now the objects of the British Association as laid 
 down by its founders seventy-two years ago are " To 
 give a stronger impulse and a more systematic direction 
 to scientific inquiry to promote the intercourse of 
 those who cultivate science in different parts of the 
 British Empire with one another and with foreign 
 philosophers to obtain a more general attention to 
 the objects of science and a removal of any disadvantages 
 of a public kind which impede its progress." 
 
 In the main, my predecessors in this Chair, to which 
 
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 you have done me the honour to call me, have dealt, 
 and with great benefit to science, with the objects first 
 named. 
 
 But at a critical time like the present I find it 
 imperative to depart from the course so generally 
 followed by my predecessors and to deal with the last 
 object named, for unless by some means or other we 
 " obtain a more general attention to the objects of 
 science and a removal of any disadvantages of a public 
 kind which impede its progress," we shall suffer in 
 competition with other communities in which science is 
 more generally utilised for the purposes of the national 
 life. 
 
 The Struggle for Existence in Modern Communities. 
 
 Some years ago, in discussing the relations of 
 scientific instruction to our industries, Huxley pointed 
 out that we were in presence of a new " struggle for 
 existence," a struggle which, once commenced, must go 
 on until only the fittest survives. 
 
 It is a struggle between organised species nations 
 not between individuals or any class of individuals. 
 It is, moreover, a struggle in which science and brains 
 take the place of swords and sinews, on which depended 
 the result of those conflicts which, up to the present, 
 have determined the history and fate of nations. The 
 school, the University, the laboratory, and the work- 
 shop are the battlefields of this new warfare. 
 
 But it is evident that if this, or anything like it, be 
 true, our industries cannot be involved alone ; the 
 scientific spirit, brain-power, must not be limited to the 
 workshop, if other nations utilise it in all branches of 
 their administration and executive. 
 
 It is a question of an important change of front. It 
 is a question of finding a new basis of stability for the 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 15 
 
 Empire in face of new conditions. I am certain that 
 those familiar with the present state of things will 
 acknowledge that the Prince of Wales's call, " Wake 
 up," applies quite as much to the members of the 
 Government as it does to the leaders of industry. 
 
 What is wanted is a complete organisation of the 
 resources of the nation, so as to enable it best to 
 face all the new problems which the progress of science, 
 combined with the ebb and flow of population and other 
 factors in international competition, are ever bringing 
 before us. Every Minister, every public department, 
 is involved ; and this being so, it is the duty of the 
 whole nation King, Lords, and Commons to do 
 what is necessary to place our scientific institutions on 
 a proper footing in order to enable us to " face the 
 music," whatever the future may bring. The idea that 
 science is useful only to our industries comes from want 
 of thought. If anyone is under the impression that 
 Britain is only suffering at present from the want of the 
 scientific spirit among our industrial classes, and that 
 those employed in the State service possess adequate 
 brain-power and grip of the conditions of the modern 
 world into which science so largely enters, let him read 
 the Report of the Royal Commission on the War in 
 South Africa. There he will see how the whole 
 " system " employed was, in Sir Henry Brackenbury's 
 words applied to a part of it " unsuited to the requirements 
 of an army which is maintained to enable us to make war." 
 Let him read also in the Address of the President of 
 the Society of Chemical Industry what drastic steps had 
 to be taken by Chambers of Commerce and " a quarter 
 of a million of working-men " to get the Patent Law 
 Amendment Act into proper shape in spite of all the 
 advisers and officials of the Board of Trade. Very few 
 people realise the immense number of scientific problems 
 the solution of which is required for the State service. 
 
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 The nation itself is a gigantic workshop ; and the more 
 our rulers and legislators, administrators and executive 
 officers possess the scientific spirit, the more the rule of 
 thumb is replaced in the State service by scientific 
 methods, the more able shall we be, thus armed at all 
 points, to compete successfully with other countries 
 along all lines of national as well as of commercial 
 activity. 
 
 It is obvious that the power of a nation for war, in 
 men and arms and ships, is one thing ; its power in the 
 peace struggles to which I have referred is another. In 
 the latter the source and standard of national efficiency 
 are entirely changed. To meet war conditions, there 
 must be equality or superiority in battleships and army 
 corps. To meet the new peace conditions, there must 
 be equality or superiority in Universities, scientific or- 
 ganisation, and everything which conduces to greater 
 brain-power. 
 
 Our Industries are Suffering in the present International 
 Competition. 
 
 The present condition of the nation, so far as its 
 industries are concerned, is as well known, not only to 
 the Prime Minister, but to other political leaders in 
 and out of the cabinet, as it is to you and to me. Let 
 me refer to two speeches delivered by Lord Rosebery 
 and Mr. Chamberlain on two successive days in January 
 1901. 
 
 Lord Rosebery spoke as follows : 
 
 "... The war I regard with apprehension is the 
 war of trade which is unmistakably upon us. ... When 
 I look round me I cannot blind my eyes to the fact 
 that, so far as we can predict anything of the twentieth 
 century on which we have now entered, it is that it will 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 17 
 
 be one of acutest international conflict in point of trade. 
 We were the first nation of the modern world to dis- 
 cover that trade was an absolute necessity. For that 
 we were nicknamed a nation of shopkeepers ; but now 
 every nation wishes to be a nation of shopkeepers too, 
 and I am bound to say that when we look at the cha- 
 racter of some of these nations, and when we look at the 
 intelligence of their preparations, we may well feel that 
 it behoves us not to fear, but to gird up our loins 
 in preparation for what is before us." 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain's views were stated in the following 
 words : 
 
 " I do not think it is necessary for me to say any- 
 thing as to the urgency and necessity of scientific 
 training. ... It is not too much to say that the exist- 
 ence of this country, as the great commercial nation, 
 depends upon it. ... It depends very much upon what 
 we are doing now, at the beginning of the twentieth 
 century, whether at its end we shall continue to maintain 
 our supremacy or even equality with our great com- 
 mercial and manufacturing rivals." 
 
 All this reters to our industries. We are suffering 
 because trade no longer follows the flag as in the old 
 days, but because trade follows the brains, and our 
 manufacturers are too apt to be careless in securing 
 them. In one chemical establishment in Germany 400 
 doctors of science, the best the Universities there can 
 turn out, have been employed at different times in late 
 years. In the United States the most successful students 
 in the higher teaching centres are snapped up the 
 moment they have finished their course of training, 
 and put into charge of large concerns, so that the idea 
 has got abroad that youth is the password of success in 
 American industry. It has been forgotten that the 
 latest product of the highest scientific education must 
 
1 8 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 necessarily be young, and that it is the training and not 
 the age which determines his employment. In Britain, 
 on the other hand, apprentices who can pay high pre- 
 miums are too often preferred to those who are well 
 educated, and the old rule-of-thumb processes are pre- 
 ferred to new developments a conservatism too often 
 depending upon the master's own want of knowledge. 
 
 I should not be doing my duty if I did not point out 
 that the defeat of our industries one after another, 
 concerning which both Lord Rosebery and Mr. Cham- 
 berlain express their anxiety, is by no means the only 
 thing we have to consider. The matter is not one 
 which concerns our industrial classes only, for knowledge 
 must be pursued for its own sake ; and since the full 
 life of a nation with a constantly increasing complexity, 
 not only of industrial, but of high national aims, depends 
 upon the universal presence 'of the scientific spirit in 
 other words, brain-power our whole national life is 
 involved. 
 
 *The Necessity for a Body dealing with the Organisation 
 
 of Science. 
 
 The present awakening in relation to the nation's real 
 needs is largely due to the warnings of men of science. 
 But Mr. Balfour's terrible Manchester picture of our 
 present educational condition l shows that the warning, 
 which has been going on now for more than fifty years, 
 has not been forcible enough ; but if my contention that 
 other reorganisations besides that of our education are 
 needed is well founded, and if men of science are to act 
 the part of good citizens in taking their share in 
 
 1 " The existing educational system of this country is chaotic, is 
 ineffectual, is utterly behind the age, makes us the laughing-stock of 
 every advanced nation in Europe and America, puts us behind, not 
 only our American cousins, but the German and the Frenchman and 
 the Italian." Times, October 15, 1902. 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 19 
 
 endeavouring to bring about a better state of things, 
 the question arises, Has the neglect of their warnings 
 so far been due to the way in which these have been 
 given ? 
 
 Lord Rosebery, in the address to a Chamber of 
 Commerce from which I have already quoted, expressed 
 his opinion that such bodies do not exercise so much 
 influence as might be expected of them. But if com- 
 mercial men do not use all the power their organisation 
 provides, do they not by having built up such an organ- 
 isation put us students of science to shame, who are 
 still the most disorganised members of the community ? 
 
 Here, in my opinion, we have the real reason why 
 the scientific needs of the nation fail to command the 
 attention either of the public or of successive Govern- 
 ments. At present, appeals on this or on that behalf 
 are the appeals of individuals ; science has no collective 
 voice on the larger national questions ; there is no 
 organised body which formulates her demands. 
 
 During many years it has been part of my duty to 
 consider such matters, and I have been driven to the 
 conclusion that our great crying need is to bring about 
 an organisation of men of science, and all interested in 
 science, similar to those which prove so effective in 
 other branches of human activity. For the last few 
 years I have dreamt of a Chamber, Guild, League, call 
 it what you will, with a wide and large membership, 
 which should give us what, in my opinion, is so urgently 
 needed. Quite recently I sketched out such an organ- 
 isation, but what was my astonishment to find that I had 
 been forestalled, and by the founders of the British 
 Association ! 
 
 B 2 
 
20 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 The British Association such a Body. 
 
 At the commencement of this Address I pointed out 
 that one of the objects of the Association, as stated by 
 its founders, was " to obtain a more general attention to 
 the objects of science and a removal of any disadvant- 
 ages of a public kind which impede its progress." 
 
 Everyone connected with the British Association from 
 its beginning may be congratulated upon the magnificent 
 way in which the other objects of the Association have 
 been carried out ; but as one familiar with the Association 
 for the last forty years I cannot but think that the object 
 to which I have specially referred has been too much 
 overshadowed by the work done in connection with the 
 others. 
 
 A careful study of the early history of the Association 
 leads me to the belief that the function I am now 
 dwelling on was strongly in the minds of the founders ; 
 but be this as it may, let me point out how admirably 
 the organisation is framed to enable men of science to 
 influence public opinion, and so to bring pressure to bear 
 upon Governments which follow public opinion, (i) 
 Unlike all the other chief metropolitan societies, its 
 outlook is not limited to any branch or branches of 
 science. (2) We have a wide and numerous fellowship, 
 including both the leaders and the lovers of science, in 
 which all branches of science are and always have been 
 included with the utmost catholicity a condition which 
 renders strong committees possible on any subject. 
 (3) An annual meeting at a time when people can pay 
 attention to the deliberations, and when the newspapers 
 can print reports. (4) The possibility of beating up 
 recruits and establishing local committees in different 
 localities, even in the King's dominions beyond the seas, 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 21 
 
 since the place of meeting changes from year to year, 
 and is not limited to these islands. 
 
 We not only, then, have a scientific Parliament 
 competent to deal with all matters, including those of 
 national importance, relating to science, but machinery 
 for influencing all new councils and committees dealing 
 with local matters, the functions of which are daily 
 becoming more important. 
 
 The machinery might consist of our corresponding 
 societies. We already have affiliated to us seventy 
 societies with a membership of 25,000. Were this 
 number increased so as to include every scientific society 
 in the Empire, metropolitan and provincial, we might 
 eventually hope for a membership of half a million. 
 
 I am glad to know that the Council is fully alive to 
 the importance of giving a greater impetus to the work 
 of the corresponding societies. During this year a com- 
 mittee was appointed to deal with the question ; and 
 later still, after this committee had reported, a conference 
 was held between this committee and the corresponding 
 societies committee to consider the suggestions made, 
 some of which will be gathered from the following 
 extract : 
 
 " In view of the increasing importance of science to the 
 nation at large, your committee desire to call the attention 
 of the Council to the fact that in the corresponding societies 
 the British Association has gathered in the various centres 
 represented by these societies practically all the scientific 
 activity of the provinces. The number of members 
 and associates at present on the list of the corresponding 
 societies approaches 25,000, and no organisation is in 
 existence anywhere in the country better adapted than 
 the British Association for stimulating, encouraging, and 
 co-ordinating all the work being carried on by the seventy 
 societies at present enrolled. Your committee are of 
 
22 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 opinion that further encouragement should be given to 
 these societies and their individual working members 
 by every means within the power of the Association ; 
 and with the object of keeping the corresponding 
 societies in more permanent touch with the Association 
 they suggest that an official invitation on behalf of the 
 Council be addressed to the societies, through the cor- 
 responding societies committee, asking them to appoint 
 standing British Association sub-committees, to be 
 elected by themselves, with the object of dealing with 
 all those subjects of investigation common to their 
 societies and to the British Association committees, and 
 to look after the general interests of science and scientific 
 education throughout the provinces and provincial 
 centres. . . . 
 
 " Your committee desire to lay special emphasis on 
 the necessity for the extension of the scientific activity 
 of the corresponding societies and the expert knowledge 
 of many of their members in the direction of scientific 
 education. They are of opinion that immense benefit 
 would accrue to the country if the corresponding 
 societies would keep this requirement especially in view 
 with the object of securing adequate representation for 
 scientific education on the Education Committees now 
 being appointed under the new Act. The education 
 section of the Association having been but recently 
 added, the corresponding societies have as yet not had 
 much opportunity for taking part in this branch of the 
 Association's work ; and in view of the reorganisation 
 in education now going on all over the country your 
 committee are of opinion that no more opportune time 
 is likely to occur for the influence of scientific organisa- 
 tions to make itself felt as a real factor in national 
 education " 
 
 I believe that if these suggestions or anything like 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 23 
 
 them for some better way may be found on inquiry 
 are accepted, great good to science throughout the 
 Empire will come. Rest assured that sooner or later 
 such a Guild will be formed because it is needed. It is 
 for you to say whether it shall be, or form part of, the 
 British Association. We in this Empire certainly need 
 to organise science as much as in Germany they find the 
 need to organise a navy. The German Navy League, 
 which has branches even in our Colonies, already has a 
 membership of 630,000, and its income is nearly 
 2o,ooo/. a year. A British Science League of 500,000 
 with a sixpenny subscription would give us I2,ooo/. a 
 year, quite enough to begin with. 
 
 I for one believe that the British Association would 
 be a vast gainer by such an expansion of one of its 
 existing functions. Increased authority and prestige 
 would follow its increased utility. The meetings would 
 possess a new interest ; there would be new subjects for 
 reports ; missionary work less needed than formerly 
 would be replaced by efforts much more suited to the 
 real wants of the time. This magnificent, strong, and 
 complicated organisation would become a living force, 
 working throughout the year instead of practically lying 
 idle, useless, and rusting for fifty-one weeks out of the 
 fifty- two so far as its close association with its members 
 is concerned. 
 
 If this suggestion in any way commends itself to you, 
 then when you begin your work in your sections or 
 General Committee see to it that a body is appointed to 
 inquire how the thing can be done. Remember that 
 the British Association will be as much weakened by the 
 creation of a new body to do the work I have shown to 
 have been in the minds of its founders as I believe it 
 will be strengthened by becoming completely effective 
 in every one of the directions they indicated, and for 
 which effectiveness we, their successors, are indeed 
 
24 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 responsible. The time is appropriate for such a rein- 
 forcement of one of the wings of our organisation, for 
 we have recently included Education among our sections. 
 There is another matter I should like to see referred 
 to the committee I have spoken of, if it please you 
 to appoint it. The British Association which, as I 
 have already pointed out, is now the chief body in the 
 Empire which deals with the totality of science is, I 
 believe, the only organisation of any consequence which 
 is without a charter, and which has not his Majesty the 
 King as patron. 
 
 The First Work of such an Organisation. 
 
 I suppose it is my duty, after I have suggested the 
 need of organisation, to tell you my personal opinion as 
 to the matters where we suffer most in consequence of 
 our lack of organisation at the present time. 
 
 Our position as a nation, our success as merchants, 
 are in peril chiefly dealing with preventable causes 
 because of our lack of completely efficient Universities 
 and our neglect of research. This research has a double 
 end. A professor who is not learning cannot teach 
 properly or arouse enthusiasm in his students ; while a 
 student of anything who is unfamiliar with research 
 methods, and without that training which research 
 brings, will not be in the best position to apply his 
 knowledge in after-life. From neglect of research 
 comes imperfect education and a small output of new 
 applications and new knowledge to reinvigorate our 
 industries. From imperfect education comes the un- 
 concern touching scientific matters and the too frequent 
 absence of the scientific spirit in the nation generally, 
 from the Court to the Parish Council. 
 
 I propose to deal as briefly as I can with each of 
 these points. 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 25 
 
 Universities. 
 
 I have shown that, so far as our industries are 
 concerned, the cause of our failure has been run to 
 earth ; it is fully recognised that it arises from the 
 insufficiency of our Universities both in numbers and 
 efficiency, so that not only our captains of industry, but 
 those employed in the nation's work generally, do 
 not secure a training similar to that afforded by 
 other nations. No additional endowment of primary, 
 secondary, or technical instruction will mend matters. 
 This is not merely the opinion of men of science ; our 
 great towns know it, our Ministers know it. 
 
 It is sufficient for me to quote Mr. Chamberlain : 
 
 " It is not everyone who can, by any possibility, go 
 forward into the higher spheres of education ; but it is 
 from those who do that we have to look for the men 
 who in the future will carry high the flag of this 
 country in commercial, scientific, and economic com- 
 petition with other nations. At the present moment I 
 believe there is nothing more important than to supply 
 the deficiencies which separate us from those with whom 
 we are in the closest competition. In Germany, in 
 America, in our own colony of Canada, and in 
 Australia, the higher education of the people has more 
 support from the Government, is carried further, than 
 it is here in the Old Country ; and the result is that in 
 every profession, in every industry, you find the places 
 taken by men and by women who have had a Univer- 
 sity education. And I would like to see the time in 
 this country when no man should have a chance for any 
 occupation of the better kind, either in our factories, 
 our workshops, or our counting-houses, who could not 
 show proof that in the course of his University career 
 
26 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 he had deserved the position that was offered to him. 
 What is it that makes a country ? Of course you may 
 say, and you would be quite right, " The general 
 qualities of the people, their resolution, their intelli- 
 gence, their pertinacity, and many other good qualities." 
 Yes ; but that is not all, and it is not the main creative 
 feature of a great nation. The greatness of a nation 
 is made by its greatest men. It is those we want to 
 educate. It is to those who are able to go, it may be, 
 from the very lowest steps in the ladder, to men who 
 are able to devote their time to higher education, that 
 we have to look to continue the position which we now 
 occupy as at all events one of the greatest nations on 
 the face of the earth. And, feeling as I do on these 
 subjects, you will not be surprised if I say that I think 
 the time is coming when Governments will give more 
 attention to this matter, and perhaps find a little more 
 money to forward its interests." l 
 
 Our conception of a University has changed. Uni- 
 versity education is no longer regarded as the luxury of 
 the rich, which concerns only those who can afford to 
 pay heavily for it. The Prime Minister in a recent 
 speech, while properly pointing out that the collective 
 effect of our public and secondary schools upon British 
 character cannot be overrated, frankly acknowledged 
 that the boys of seventeen or eighteen who have to be 
 educated in them " do not care a farthing about the 
 world they live in except in so far as it concerns the 
 cricket-field or the football-field or the river." On this 
 ground they are not to be taught science ; and hence, 
 when they proceed to the University, their curriculum 
 is limited to subjects which were better taught before 
 the modern world existed, or even Galileo was born. 
 But the science which these young gentlemen neglect, 
 
 1 Times, November 6, 1902. 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 27 
 
 with the full approval of their teachers, on their way 
 through the school and the University to politics, the 
 Civil Service, or the management of commercial con- 
 cerns, is now one of the great necessities of a nation ; 
 and our Universities must become as much the insurers 
 of the future progress as battleships are the insurers of 
 the present power of States. In other words, University 
 competition between States is now as potent as competi- 
 tion in building battleships ; and it is on this ground 
 that our University conditions become of the highest 
 national concern, and therefore have to be referred to 
 here, and all the more because our industries are not 
 alone in question. 
 
 Why We have not More Universities. 
 
 Chief among the causes which have brought us to the 
 terrible condition of inferiority as compared with other 
 nations in which we find ourselves are our carelessness in 
 the matter of education and our false notions of the 
 limitations of State functions in relation to the condi- 
 tions of modern civilisation. 
 
 Time was when the Navy was largely a matter of 
 private and local effort. William the Conqueror gave 
 privileges to the Cinque Ports on the condition that 
 they furnished fifty-two ships when wanted. In the time 
 of Edward III., of 730 sail engaged in the siege of 
 Calais 705 were " people's ships." All this has passed 
 away ; for our first line of defence we no longer 
 depend on private and local effort. 
 
 Time was when not a penny was spent by the State 
 on elementary education. Again, we no longer depend 
 upon private and local effort. The Navy and primary 
 education are now recognised as properly calling upon 
 the public for the necessary financial support. But 
 when we pass from primary to University education, 
 
28 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 instead of State endowment we find State neglect ; 
 we are in a region where it is nobody's business to see 
 that anything is done. 
 
 We in Great Britain have thirteen Universities com- 
 peting with 134 State and privately endowed in the 
 United States and twenty-two State endowed in Ger- 
 many. I leave other countries out of consideration for 
 lack of time, and I omit all reference to higher institu- 
 tions for technical training, of which Germany alone 
 possesses nine of University rank, because they are less 
 important ; they instruct rather than educate, and our 
 want is education. The German State gives to one 
 University more than the British Government allows to 
 all the Universities and University Colleges in England, 
 Ireland, Scotland, and Wales put together. These are 
 the conditions which regulate the production of brain- 
 power in the United States, Germany, and Britain 
 respectively, and the excuse of the Government is that 
 this is a matter for private effort. Do not our 
 Ministers of State know that other civilised countries 
 grant efficient State aid, and, further, that private effort 
 has provided in Great Britain less than 10 per cent, of 
 the sum thus furnished in the United States in addition 
 to State aid ? Are they content that we should go 
 under in the great struggle of the modern world because 
 the Ministries of other States are wiser, and because the 
 individual citizens of another country are more generous, 
 than our own ? 
 
 If we grant that there was some excuse for the 
 State's neglect so long as the higher teaching dealt only 
 with words, and books alone had to be provided (for 
 the streets of London and Paris have been used as class- 
 rooms at a pinch), it must not be forgotten that 
 during the last hundred years not only has knowledge 
 been enormously increased, but things have replaced 
 words, and fully-equipped laboratories must take the 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 29 
 
 place of books and class-rooms if University training 
 worthy of the name is to be provided. There is 
 much more difference in size and kind between an old 
 and new University than there is between the old 
 caravel and a modern battleship, and the endowments 
 must follow suit. 
 
 What are the facts relating to private endowment in 
 this country ? In spite of the munificence displayed 
 by a small number of individuals in some localities, 
 the truth must be spoken. In depending in our country 
 upon this form of endowment we are trusting to a 
 broken reed. If we take the twelve English University 
 Colleges, the forerunners of Universities unless we are 
 to perish from lack of knowledge, we find that private 
 effort during sixty years has found less than 
 4,ooo,ooo/. ; that is, 2,ooo,ooo/. for buildings, and 
 4O,ooo/. a year income. This gives us an average of 
 i66,ooo/. for buildings, and 3,3OO/. for yearly 
 income. 
 
 What is the scale of private effort we have to 
 compete with in regard to the American Universities ? 
 
 In the United States, during the last few years, 
 Universities and colleges have received more than 
 4O,ooo,ooo/. from this source alone ; private effort 
 supplied nearly 7,ooo,ooo/. in the years 1898-1900. 
 
 Next consider the amount of State aid to Universi- 
 ties afforded in Germany. The buildings of the new 
 University of Strassburg have already cost nearly a 
 million ; that is, about as much as has yet been found 
 by private effort for buildings in Manchester, Liver- 
 pool, Birmingham, Bristol, Newcastle, and Sheffield. 
 The Government annual endowment of the same 
 German University is more than 49,0007. 
 
 This is what private endowment does for us in 
 England, against State endowment in Germany. 
 
 But the State does really concede the principle ; its 
 
30 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 present contribution to our Universities and colleges 
 amounts to 155,6007. a year. No capital sum, how- 
 ever, is taken for buildings. The State endowment 
 of the University of Berlin in 1891-2 amounted to 
 168,7777. 
 
 When, then, we consider the large endowments of 
 University education both in the United States and 
 Germany, it is obvious that State aid only can make 
 any valid competition possible with either. The more 
 we study the facts, the more statistics are gone into, 
 the more do we find that we, to a large extent, lack 
 both of the sources of endowment upon one or other, 
 or both, of which other nations depend. We are 
 between two stools, and the prospect is hopeless with- 
 out some drastic changes. And first among these, if 
 we intend to get out of the present Slough of Despond, 
 must be the giving up of the idea of relying upon 
 private effort. 
 
 That we lose most where the State does least is 
 known to Mr. Chamberlain, for in his speech, to which 
 I have referred, on the University of Birmingham, he 
 said : " As the importance of the aim we are pursuing 
 becomes more and more impressed upon the minds of 
 the people, we may find that we shall be more 
 generously treated by the State." 
 
 Later still, on the occasion of a visit to University 
 College School, Mr. Chamberlain spoke as follows : 
 
 " When we are spending, as we are, many millions 
 I think it is 13,000,0007. a year on primary educa- 
 tion, it certainly seems as if we might add a little more, 
 even a few tens of thousands, to what we give to 
 University and secondary education." l 
 
 To compete on equal grounds with other nations 
 we must have more Universities. But this is not all 
 1 Times, November 6, 1902. 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 31 
 
 we want a far better endowment of all the exist- 
 ing ones, not forgetting better opportunities for 
 research on the part of both professors and students. 
 Another crying need is that of more professors and 
 better pay. Another is the reduction of fees ; they 
 should be reduced to the level in those countries 
 which are competing with us to, say, one-fifth of their 
 present rates, so as to enable more students in the 
 secondary and technical schools to complete their 
 education. 
 
 In all these ways facilities would be afforded for 
 providing the highest instruction to a much greater 
 number of students. At present there are almost as 
 many professors and instructors in the Universities and 
 colleges of the United States as there are day students 
 in the Universities and colleges of the United 
 Kingdom. 
 
 Men of science, our leaders of industry, and the 
 chiefs of our political parties all agree that our present 
 want of higher education in other words, properly 
 equipped Universities is heavily handicapping us in 
 the present race for commercial supremacy, because it 
 provides a relatively inferior brain-power, which is 
 leading to a relatively reduced national income. 
 
 The facts show that in this country we cannot 
 depend upon private effort to put matters right. How 
 about local effort ? 
 
 Anyone who studies the statistics of modern muni- 
 cipalities will see that it is impossible for them to raise 
 rates for the building and upkeep of Universities. 
 
 The buildings of the most modern University in 
 Germany have cost a million. For upkeep the yearly 
 sums found, chiefly by the State, for German Uni- 
 versities of different grades, taking the incomes of 
 seven out of the twenty-two Universities as examples, 
 are : 
 
32 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 First Class . . . Berlin . . . 130,000 
 
 Second Class. . {g? ngen } . 56,000 
 
 Third Class. fef - 48,000 
 
 Fourth Class. . - * 37,ooo 
 
 Thus, if Leeds, which is to have a University, is 
 content with the fourth class German standard, a rate 
 must be levied of *]d. in the pound for yearly expenses, 
 independent of all buildings. But the facts are that 
 our towns are already at the breaking strain. During 
 the last fifty years, in spite of enormous increases in 
 rateable values, the rates have gone up from about is. 
 to about *js. in the pound for real local purposes. But 
 no University can be a merely local institution. 
 
 How to get More Universities. 
 
 What, then, is to be done ? Fortunately, we have a 
 precedent admirably in point, the consideration of which 
 may help us to answer this question. 
 
 I have pointed out that in old days our Navy was 
 chiefly provided by local and private effort. Fortu- 
 nately for us those days have passed away ; but some 
 twenty years ago, in spite of a large expenditure, it 
 began to be felt by those who knew, that in consequence 
 of the increase of foreign navies our sea-power was 
 threatened, as now, in consequence of the increase of 
 foreign Universities, our brain-power is threatened. 
 
 The nation slowly woke up to find that its enormous 
 commerce was no longer insured at sea, that in relation 
 to foreign navies our own had been suffered to dwindle 
 to such an extent that it was no longer capable of 
 doing the duty which the nation expected of it even 
 in times of peace. At first this revelation was received 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 33 
 
 with a shrug of incredulity, and the peace-at-any-price 
 party denied that anything was needed ; but a great 
 teacher arose ; 1 as the facts were inquired into, the 
 suspicion changed into an alarm ; men of all parties 
 saw that something must be done. Later the nation 
 was thoroughly aroused, and with an universal agree- 
 ment the principle was laid down that, cost what it 
 might to enforce our sea-power, our Navy must be 
 made and maintained of a strength greater than those 
 of any two possibly contending Powers. After establish- 
 ing this principle, the next thing to do was to give 
 effect to it. What did the nation do after full dis- 
 cussion and inquiry? A Bill was brought in in 1888, 
 and a sum of 21,500,000^ was voted in order, during 
 the next five years, to inaugurate a large ship-building 
 programme, so that Britain and Britain's commerce 
 might be guarded on the high seas in any event. 
 
 Since then we have spent i2O,ooo,ooo/. on new ships, 
 and this year we spend still more millions on still more 
 new ships. If these prove insufficient to safeguard our 
 sea-power, there is no doubt that the nation will increase 
 them, and I have not heard that anybody has suggested 
 an appeal to private effort. 
 
 How, then, do we stand with regard to Universities, 
 recognising them as the chief producers of brain-power 
 and therefore the equivalents of battleships in relation 
 to sea-power ? Do their numbers come up to the 
 standard established by the Admiralty principle to 
 which I have referred ? Let us attempt to get a rough- 
 and-ready estimate of our educational position by 
 counting Universities as the Admiralty counts battle- 
 ships. I say rough-and-ready, because we have other 
 helps to greater brain-power to consider besides 
 
 1 Captain Mahan, of the U.S. Navy, whose book, " On the Influence 
 of Sea-power on History," has suggested the title of my address. 
 
 C 
 
34 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 Universites, as the Admiralty has other ships to consider 
 besides ironclads. 
 
 In the first place, let us inquire if they are equal in 
 number to those of any two nations commercially 
 competing with us. 
 
 In the United Kingdom we had until quite recently 
 thirteen. 1 Of these, one is only three years old as a 
 teaching University, and another is still merely an 
 examining board. 
 
 In Germany there are twenty-two Universities ; in 
 France, under recent legislation, fifteen ; in Italy, 
 twenty-one. It is difficult to give the number in the 
 United States, because it is clear, from the tables given 
 in the Report of the Commissioner of Education, 
 that some colleges are more important than some 
 Universities, and both give the degree of Ph.D. But 
 of Universities in title we have 134. Among these, 
 there are forty-six with more than fifty professors 
 and instructors, and thirteen with more than 150. I 
 will take that figure. 
 
 Suppose we consider the United States and Ger- 
 many, our chief commercial competitors, and apply the 
 Admiralty principle. We should require, allowing for 
 population, eight additional Universities at the very 
 lowest estimate. 
 
 We see, then, that instead of having Universities 
 equalling in number those of two of our chief com- 
 petitors together, they are by no means equal to those 
 of either of them singly. 
 
 After this statement of the facts, anyone who has 
 belief in the importance of higher education will have 
 no difficulty in understanding the origin of the present 
 condition of British industry and its constant decline, 
 
 1 These are Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Victoria, Wales, Birming- 
 ham, London, St. Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Dublin, 
 and Royal University. 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 
 
 35 
 
 first in one direction and then in another, since the 
 tremendous efforts made in the United States and 
 Germany began to take effect. 
 
 If, indeed, there be anything wrong about the 
 comparison, the error can only arise from one of two 
 sources either the Admiralty is thoughtlessly and 
 wastefully spending money, or there is no connection 
 whatever between the higher intelligence and the pros- 
 perity of a nation. I have already referred to the 
 views of Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Rosebery on this 
 point ; we know what Mr. Chamberlain has done at 
 Birmingham ; we know the strenuous efforts made by 
 the commercial leaders of Manchester and Liverpool ; 
 we know, also, the opinion of men of science. 
 
 If while we spend so freely to maintain our sea-power 
 our export of manufactured articles is relatively reduced 
 because our competitors beat us in the markets of the 
 world, what is the end of the vista thus opened up to 
 us ? A Navy growing stronger every year and requir- 
 ing larger votes to guard our commerce and communi- 
 cations, and a vanishing quantity of commerce to guard 
 a reduced national income to meet an increasing taxation ! 
 
 The pity is that our Government has considered 
 sea-power alone ; that while so completely guarding our 
 commerce it has given no thought to one of the main 
 conditions on which its production and increase depend. 
 A glance could have shown that other countries were 
 building Universities even faster than they were building 
 battleships ; were, in fact, considering brain-power first 
 and sea-power afterwards. 
 
 Surely it is my duty as your President to point out 
 the danger ahead, if such ignoring of the true situation 
 should be allowed to continue. May I express a hope 
 that at last, in Mr. Chamberlain's words, " the time is 
 coming when Governments will give more attention to 
 this matter " ? 
 
 c 2 
 
36 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 What will they Cost ? 
 
 The comparison shows that we want eight new 
 Universities, some of which, of course, will be colleges 
 promoted to University rank and fitted to carry on 
 University work. Three of them are already named : 
 Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds. 
 
 Let us take this number and deal with it on the 
 battleship condition, although a modern University on 
 American or German models will cost more to build 
 than a battleship. 
 
 If our present University shortage be dealt with on 
 battleship conditions, to correct it we should expend at 
 least 8,ooo,ooo/. for new construction, and for the pay- 
 sheet we should have to provide (8 x 50,0007.) 
 4OO,ooo7. yearly for personnel and up-keep ; for it is 
 of no use to build either ships or Universities without 
 manning them. Let us say, roughly, capitalising the 
 yearly payment at 2^ per cent., 24,000,0007. 
 
 At this stage it is important to inquire whether this 
 sum, arrived at by analogy merely, has any relation to 
 our real University needs. 
 
 I have spent a year in making inquiries, as full as I 
 could make them, of friends conversant with the real 
 present needs of each of the Universities, old and new. 
 I have obtained statistics which would fill a volume, and 
 personally I believe that this sum at least is required to 
 bring our University system up to anything like the 
 level which is insisted upon both in the United States 
 and in Germany. Even Oxford, our oldest University, 
 will still continue to be a mere bundle of colleges unless 
 three millions are provided to enable the University, 
 properly so called, to take her place among her sisters 
 of the modern world ; and Sir Oliver Lodge, the 
 Principal of our very youngest University, Birmingham, 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 37 
 
 has shown in detail how five millions can be usefully 
 and properly applied in that one locality to utilise for 
 the good of the nation the enthusiasm and scientific 
 capacity which are only waiting for adequate opportunity 
 of development. 
 
 How is this money to be raised ? I reply, without 
 hesitation, Duplicate the Navy Bill of 1888-9 do 
 at once for brain-power what we so successfully did 
 then for sea-power. 
 
 Let 24,000,0007. be set apart from one asset, our 
 national wealth, to increase the other, brain-power. 
 Let it be assigned and borrowed as it is wanted ; there 
 will be a capital sum for new buildings to be erected in 
 the next five or ten years, the interest of the remainder 
 to go towards increased annual endowments. 
 
 There need be no difficulty about allocating money to 
 the various institutions. Let each University make up 
 its mind as to which rank of the German Universities it 
 wishes to emulate. When this claim has been agreed 
 to, the sums necessary to provide the buildings and 
 teaching staff of that class of University should be 
 granted without demur. 
 
 It is the case of battleships over again, and money 
 need not be spent more freely in one case than in the 
 other. 
 
 Let me at once say that this sum is not to be re- 
 garded as practically gone when spent, as in the case of 
 a short-lived ironclad. // is a loan which will bear a 
 high rate of interest. This is not my opinion merely ; 
 it is the opinion of those concerned in great industrial 
 enterprises and fully alive to the origin and effects of 
 the present condition of things. 
 
 1 have been careful to point out that the statement 
 that our industries are suffering from our relative 
 neglect of science does not rest on my authority. But 
 if this be true, then if our annual production is less by 
 
38 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 only two millions than it might have been, having two 
 millions less to divide would be equivalent to our having 
 forty or fifty millions less capital than we should have 
 had if we had been more scientific. 
 
 Sir John Brunner, in a speech connected with the 
 Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, stated recently 
 that if we as a nation were now to borrow ten millions 
 of money in order to help science by putting up build- 
 ings and endowing professors, we should get the money 
 back in the course of a generation a hundredfold. He 
 added that there was no better investment for a business 
 man than the encouragement of science, and that every 
 penny he possessed had come from the application of 
 science to commerce. 
 
 According to Sir Robert Giffen, the United Kingdom 
 as a going concern was in 1901 worth i6,ooo,ooo,ooo/. 
 
 Were we to put aside 24,ooo,ooo/. for gradually 
 organising, building, and endowing new Universities, 
 and making the existing ones more efficient, we should 
 still be worth 15,976,000,0007. a property well 
 worth defending by all the means, and chief among 
 these brain-power, we can command. 
 
 If it be held that this, or anything like it, is too 
 great a price to pay for correcting past carelessness or 
 stupidity, the reply is that the 1 2O,ooo,ooo/. recently 
 spent on the Navy, a sum five times greater, has 
 been spent to correct a sleepy blunder, not one whit 
 more inimical to the future welfare of our country than 
 that which has brought about our present educational 
 position. We had not sufficiently recognised what 
 other nations had done in the way of ship-building, just 
 as until now we have not recognised what they have 
 been doing in University building. 
 
 Further, I am told that the sum of 24,000,0007. is 
 less than half the amount by which Germany is yearly 
 enriched by having improved upon our chemical 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 39 
 
 industries, owing to our lack of scientific training. 
 Many other industries have been attacked in the same 
 way since ; but taking this one instance alone, if we had 
 spent this money fifty years ago, when the Prince 
 Consort first called attention to our backwardness, the 
 nation would now be much richer than it is, and would 
 have much less to fear from competition. 
 
 Suppose we were to set about putting our educational 
 house in order, so as to secure a higher quality and 
 greater quantity of brain-power, it would not be the 
 first time in history that this has been done. Both 
 Prussia after Jena and France after Sedan acted on the 
 
 view : 
 
 " When land is gone and money spent, 
 Then learning is most excellent." 
 
 After Jena, which left Prussia a " bleeding and lacer- 
 ated mass," the King and his wise counsellors, among 
 them men who had gained knowledge from Kant, 
 determined, as they put it, " to supply the loss of 
 territory by intellectual effort." 
 
 What did they do ? In spite of universal poverty, 
 three Universities, to say nothing of observatories and 
 other institutions, were at once founded, secondary 
 education was developed, and in a few years the mental 
 resources were so well looked after that Lord Palmerston 
 defined the kingdom in question as " a country of 
 damned professors." 
 
 After Sedan a battle, as Moltke told us, " won by 
 the schoolmaster " France made even more strenuous 
 efforts. The old University of France, with its 
 " academies " in various places, was replaced by fifteen 
 independent Universities, in all of which are faculties of 
 letters, sciences, law, and medicine. 
 
 The development of the University of Paris has 
 been truly marvellous. In 1897-8 there were 12,000 
 students, and the cost was 2OO,ooo/. a year. 
 
40 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 But even more wonderful than these examples is the 
 " intellectual effort " made by Japan, not after a war, 
 but to prepare for one. 
 
 The question is, Shall we wait for a disaster and then 
 imitate Prussia and France ; or shall we follow Japan 
 and thoroughly prepare by " intellectual effort " for the 
 industrial struggle which lies before us ? 
 
 Such an effort seems to me to be the first thing any 
 national or imperial scientific organisation should 
 endeavour to bring about. 
 
 Research. 
 
 When dealing with our Universities I referred to the 
 importance of research, as it is now generally acknow- 
 ledged to be the most powerful engine of education that 
 we possess. But education, after all, is but a means to 
 the end, which, from the national point of view, is the 
 application of old and the production of new know- 
 ledge. 
 
 Its national importance apart from education is now 
 so generally recognised that in all civilised nations 
 except our own means of research are being daily more 
 amply provided for all students after they have passed 
 through their University career ; and, more than this, 
 for all who can increase the country's renown or pros- 
 perity by the making of new knowledge, upon which 
 not only commercial progress, but all intellectual 
 advance must depend. 
 
 I am so anxious that my statement of our pressing, 
 and indeed imperative, needs in this direction should 
 not be considered as resting upon the possibly interested 
 opinion of a student of science merely that I must 
 trouble you with still more quotations. 
 
 Listen to Mr. Balfour: 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 41 
 
 " I do not believe that any man who looks round the 
 equipment of our Universities or medical schools or 
 other places of education can honestly say in his heart 
 that we have done enough to equip research with all 
 the costly armoury which research must have in these 
 modern days. We, the richest country in the world, 
 lag behind Germany, France, Switzerland, and Italy. Is 
 it not disgraceful ? Are we too poor or are we too 
 stupid ? " 
 
 It is imagined by many who have given no 
 thought to the matter that this research should be 
 closely allied with some application of science being 
 utilised at the time. Nothing could be further from 
 the truth ; nothing could be more unwise than such a 
 limitation. 
 
 Surely all the laws of Nature will be ultimately of 
 service, and therefore there is much more future help to 
 be got from a study of the unknown and the unused 
 than we can hope to obtain by continuing the study of 
 that which is pretty well known and utilised already. 
 It was a King of France, Louis XIV., who first com- 
 mended the study of the meme inutile. The history of 
 modern science shows us more and more as the years 
 roll on the necessity and advantage of such studies, and 
 therefore the importance of properly endowing them ; 
 for the production of new knowledge is a costly and 
 unremunerative pursuit. 
 
 Years ago we had Faraday apparently wasting his 
 energies and time in playing with needles ; electricity 
 now fills the world. To-day men of science in all 
 lands are studying the emanations of radium ; no 
 research could be more abstract ; but who knows 
 what advance in human thought may follow or what 
 gigantic world-transforming superstructure may 
 
 1 Nature, May 30, 1901. 
 
42 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 eventually be raised on the minute foundation they 
 are laying ? 
 
 If we so organise our teaching forces that we can use 
 them at all stages, from the gutter to the University, to 
 sift out for us potential Faradays to utilise the mental 
 products which otherwise would be wasted it is only 
 by enabling such men to continue their learning after 
 their teaching is over that we shall be able to secure the 
 greatest advantage which any educational system can 
 afford. 
 
 It is now more than thirty years ago that my atten- 
 tion was specially drawn to this question of the 
 endowment of research first, by conversations with 
 M. Dumas, the permanent secretary of the Academy of 
 Sciences, who honoured me by his friendship ; and, 
 secondly, by my association with Sir Benjamin Brodie 
 and Dr. Appleton in their endeavours to call attention 
 to the matter in this country. At that time a general 
 scheme of endowment suggested by Dumas was being 
 carried out by Duruy. This took the form of the 
 " licole speciale des Hautes fitudes " ; it was what our 
 fellowship system was meant to be an endowment of 
 the research of post-graduate students in each seat of 
 learning. The French effort did not begin then. 
 
 I may here tell, as it was told me by Dumas, the 
 story of Leon Foucault, whose many discoveries shed a 
 glory on France and revived French industry in many 
 directions. 1 In 1851, when Prince Napoleon was 
 President of the Republic!, he sent for Dumas and 
 some of his colleagues, and told them that during his 
 stay in England, and afterwards in his study of the 
 Great Exhibition of that year, he had found there a 
 greater industrial development than in France, and 
 more applications of science, adding that he wished to 
 know how such a state of things could be at once 
 1 See Proc. R. S., vol. xvii., p. Ixxxiii. 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 43 
 
 remedied. The answer was that new applications 
 depended upon new knowledge, and that therefore the 
 most direct and immediate way was to find and 
 encourage men who were likely by research in pure 
 science to produce this new knowledge. The Prince- 
 President at once asked for names ; that of Leon 
 Foucault was the only one mentioned during the first 
 interview. 
 
 Some time afterwards to be exact, at about eleven 
 in the morning of December 2 Dumas's servant- in- 
 formed him that there was a gentleman in the hall 
 named Foucault, who wished to see him, and he added 
 that he appeared to be very ill. When shown into the 
 study, Foucault was too agitated to speak, and was 
 blind with tears. His reply to Dumas's soothing 
 questions was to take from his pockets two rolls of 
 banknotes, amounting to 200,000 francs, and place 
 them on the table. Finally, he was able to say that he 
 had been with the Prince-President since eight o'clock 
 that morning, discussing the possible improvement of 
 French science and industry ; and that Napoleon had 
 finally given him the money, requesting him to do all 
 in his power to aid the State. Foucault ended by 
 saying that, on realising the greatness of the task 
 thus imposed upon him, his fears and feelings had got 
 the better of him, for the responsibility seemed more 
 than he could bear. 1 
 
 The movement in England to which I have referred 
 began in 1872, when a society for the organisation of 
 academical study was formed in connection, with the 
 
 1 In order to show how history is written, what actually happened 
 on a fateful morning may be compared with the account given by 
 Kinglake : ' Prince Louis rode home and went in out of sight. Then 
 for the most part he remained close shut up in the Elyse'e. There, in 
 an inner room, still decked in red trousers, but with his back to the 
 daylight, they say he sat bent over a fireplace for hours and hours 
 together, resting his elbows on his knees, and burying his face in his 
 hands.' Crimean War, vol. i., p. 245. 
 
44 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 inquiry into the revenues of Oxford and Cambridge, 
 and there was a famous meeting at the Freemasons' 
 Tavern, Mark Pattison being in the chair. Brodie, 
 Rolleston, Carpenter, Burdon-Sanderson, were among 
 the speakers, and the first resolution carried was, " That 
 to have a class of men whose lives are devoted to 
 research is a national object." The movement died in 
 consequence of the want of sympathy of the University 
 authorities. 1 
 
 In the year 1874 the subject was inquired into by 
 the late Duke of Devonshire's Commission ; and after 
 taking much remarkable evidence, including that of Lord 
 Salisbury, the Commission recommended to the 
 Government that the then grant of i,ooo/., which was 
 expended, by a committee appointed by the Royal 
 Society, on instruments needed -in researches carried on 
 by private individuals, should be increased, so that 
 personal grants should be made. This recommendation 
 was accepted and acted on ; the grant was increased to 
 4,ooo/., and finally other societies were associated with 
 the Royal Society in its administration. The committee, 
 however, was timorous, possibly owing to the apathy of 
 the Universities and the general carelessness on such 
 matters, and only one personal grant was made ; the 
 whole conception fell through. 
 
 Meantime, however, opinion has become more 
 educated and alive to the extreme importance of 
 research to the nation, and in 1891 a suggestion was 
 made to the Royal Commission which administers the 
 proceeds of the 1851 Exhibition that a sum of about 
 6,ooo/. a year available for scholarships should be 
 employed in encouraging post-graduate research 
 throughout the whole Empire. As what happened is 
 told in the Memoirs of Lord Playfair, it is not indis- 
 creet in me to state that when I proposed this new 
 1 See Nature, November and December, 1872. 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 45 
 
 form of the endowment of research it would not have 
 surprised me if the suggestion had -been declined. It 
 was carried through by Lord Playfair's enthusiastic 
 support. This system has been at work ever since, and 
 the good that has been done by it is now generally 
 conceded. 
 
 It is a supreme satisfaction to me to know that in 
 this present year of grace the national importance of the 
 study of the meme inutile is more generally recognised 
 than it was during the times to which I have referred 
 in my brief survey ; and, indeed, we students are for- 
 tunate in having on our side in this matter two members 
 of His Majesty's Government, who two years ago spoke 
 with no uncertain sound upon this matter : 
 
 " Do we lack the imagination required to show what 
 these apparently remote and abstract studies do for the 
 happiness of mankind ? We can appreciate that which 
 obviously and directly ministers to human advancement 
 and felicity, but seem, somehow or another, to be 
 deficient in that higher form of imagination, in that 
 longer sight, which sees in studies which have no ob- 
 vious, necessary, or immediate result the foundation 
 of the knowledge which shall give far greater happiness 
 to mankind than any immediate, material, industrial ad- 
 vancement can possibly do ; and I fear, and greatly fear, 
 that, lacking that imagination, we have allowed our- 
 selves to lag in the glorious race run now by civilised 
 countries in pursuit of knowledge, and we have per- 
 mitted ourselves so far to too large an extent to depend 
 upon others for those additions to our knowledge which 
 surely we might have made for ourselves." 1 
 
 " I would remind you that all history shows that 
 progress national progress of every kind depends 
 
 1 Mr. Balfour, Nature, May 30, 1901. 
 
46 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 upon certain individuals rather than upon the mass. 
 Whether you take religion, or literature, or political 
 government, or art, or commerce, the new ideas, the 
 great steps, have been made by individuals of superior 
 quality and genius, who have, as is were, dragged the 
 mass of the nation up one step to a higher level. So it 
 must be in regard to material progress. The position 
 of the nation to-day is due to the efforts of men like 
 Watt and Arkwright, or, in our own time, to the Arm- 
 strongs, the Whitworths, the Kelvins, and the Siemenses. 
 These are the men who, by their discoveries, by their 
 remarkable genius, have produced the ideas upon which 
 others have acted and which have permeated the whole 
 mass of the nation and affected the whole of its pro- 
 ceedings. Therefore what we have to do, and this is 
 our special task and object, is to produce more of these 
 great men." 1 
 
 I finally come to the political importance of research. 
 A country's research is as important in the long run as 
 its battleships. The most eloquent teaching as to its 
 national value we owe to Mr. Carnegie, for he has given 
 the sum of 2,ooo,ooo/. to found a system of endowments, 
 his chief purpose being, in his own words, " to secure if 
 possible for the United States of America leadership in 
 the domain of discovery and the utilisation of new 
 forces for the benefit of man." 
 
 Here is a distinct challenge to Britain. Judging by 
 experience in this country, in spite of the magnificent 
 endowment of research by Mond and Lord Iveagh, the 
 only source of possible competition in the British in- 
 terest is the State, which certainly could not put the 
 i/8oooth part of the accumulated wealth of the country 
 to better use ; for without such help both our Univer- 
 1 Mr. Chamberlain, Times, January 18, 1901. 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 47 
 
 sities and our battleships will become of rapidly dwind- 
 ling importance. 
 
 It is on this ground that I have included the import- 
 ance of endowing research among the chief points to 
 which I have been anxious to draw your attention. 
 
 'The Need of a Scientific National Council. 
 
 In referring to the new struggle for existence among 
 civilised communities I pointed out that the solution of 
 a large number of scientific problems is now daily re- 
 quired for the State service, and that in this and other 
 ways the source and standard of national efficiency have 
 been greatly changed. 
 
 Much evidence bearing upon the amount of scientific 
 knowledge required for the proper administration of the 
 public departments, and the amount of scientific work 
 done by and for the nation, was brought before the 
 Royal Commission on Science presided over by the late 
 Duke of Devonshire now more than a quarter of a 
 century ago. 
 
 The Commission unanimously recommended that the 
 State should be aided by a scientific council in facing 
 the new problems constantly arising. 
 
 But while the home Government has apparently made 
 up its mind to neglect the advice so seriously given, it 
 should be a source of gratification to us all to know 
 that the application of the resources of modern science 
 to the economic, industrial, and agricultural develop- 
 ment of India has for many years engaged the earnest 
 attention of the Government of that country. The 
 Famine Commissioners of 1878 laid much stress on the 
 institution of scientific inquiry and experiment designed 
 to lead to the gradual increase of the food-supply 
 and to the greater stability of agricultural outturn, 
 while the experience of recent years has indicated the 
 
48 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 increasing importance of the study of the economic 
 products and mineral-bearing tracts. 
 
 Lord Curzon has recently ordered the heads of the 
 various scientific departments to form a board, which 
 shall meet twice annually, to begin with, to formulate a 
 programme and to review past work. The board is 
 also to act as an advisory committee to the Govern- 
 ment, 1 providing among other matters for the proper 
 co-ordination of all matters of scientific inquiry affecting 
 India's welfare. 
 
 Lord Curzon is to be warmly congratulated upon the 
 step he has taken, which is certain to bring benefit to 
 our great Dependency. 
 
 The importance of such a board is many times greater 
 at home, with so many external as well as internal 
 interests to look after problems common to peace and 
 war, problems requiring the help of the economic as 
 well as of the physical sciences. 
 
 It may be asked, What is done in Germany, where 
 science is fostered and utilised far more than here ? 
 
 The answer is, There is such a council. I fancy, very 
 much like what our Privy Council once was. It 
 consists of representatives of the Ministry, the Univer- 
 sities, the industries, and agriculture. It is small, con- 
 sisting of about a dozen members, consultative, and it 
 reports direct to the Emperor. It does for industrial 
 war what military and so-called defence councils do for 
 national armaments ; it considers everything relating 
 to the use of brain-power in peace from alterations in 
 school regulations and the organisation of the Univer- 
 sities, to railway rates and fiscal schemes, including the 
 adjustment of duties. I am informed that what this 
 council advises, generally becomes law. 
 
 It should be pretty obvious that a nation so provided 
 must have enormous chances in its favour. It is a 
 1 Nature, September 4, 1902. 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 49 
 
 question of drilled battalions against an undisciplined 
 army, of the use of the scientific spirit as opposed to 
 the hope of " muddling through.'* 
 
 Mr. Haldane has recently reminded us that " the 
 weapons which science places in the hands of those who 
 engage in great rivalries of commerce leave those who 
 are without them, however brave, as badly off as were 
 the dervishes of Omdurman against the Maxims of Lord 
 Kitchener." 
 
 Without such a machinery as this, how can our 
 Ministers and our rulers be kept completely informed 
 on a thousand things of vital importance ? Why should 
 our position and requirements as an industrial and 
 thinking nation receive less attention from the authorities 
 than the headdress of the Guards ? How, in the words 
 of Lord Curzon, 1 can " the life and vigour of a nation 
 be summed up before the world in the person of its 
 sovereign " if the national organisation is so defective 
 that it has no means of keeping the head of the State 
 informed on things touching the most vital and lasting 
 interests of the country ? We seem to be still in the 
 Palaeolithic Age in such matters, the chief difference 
 being that the sword has replaced the flint implement. 
 
 Some may say that it is contrary to our habit to 
 expect the Government to interest itself too much or to 
 spend money on matters relating to peace ; that war 
 dangers are the only ones to be met or to be studied. 
 
 But this view leaves science and the progress of science 
 out of the question. Every scientific advance is now, 
 and will in the future be more and more, applied to war. 
 It is no longer a question of an armed force with 
 scientific corps ; it is a question of an armed force 
 scientific from top to bottom. Thank God, the Navy 
 has already found this out. Science will ultimately rule 
 
 1 Times, September 30, 1902. 
 
5 o ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 all the operations both of peace and war, and therefore the 
 industrial and the fighting population must both have 
 a large common ground of education. Already it is 
 not looking too far ahead to see that in a perfect State 
 there will be a double use of each citizen a peace use 
 and a war use ; and the more science advances, the more 
 the old difference between the peaceful citizen and the 
 man at arms will disappear. The barrack, if it still 
 exists, and the workshop will be assimilated ; the land 
 unit, like the battleship, will become a school of applied 
 science, self-contained, in which the officers will be the 
 efficient teachers. 
 
 I do not think it is yet recognised how much the 
 problem of national defence has thus become associated 
 with that with which we are now chiefly concerned. 
 
 These, then, are some of the reasons which compel 
 me to point out that a scientific council, which might 
 be a scientific committee of the Privy Council, in deal- 
 ing primarily with the national needs in times of peace, 
 would be a source of strength to the nation. 
 
 To sum up, then. My earnest appeal to you is to 
 gird up your loins and see to it that the science of the 
 British Empire shall no longer remain unorganised. I 
 have endeavoured to point out to you how the nation at 
 present suffers from the absence of a powerful, con- 
 tinuous, reasoned expression of scientific opinion, urging 
 in season and out of season that we shall be armed as 
 other nations are, with efficient Universities and facilities 
 for research to uphold the flag of Britain in the domain 
 of learning and discovery, and what they alone can bring. 
 
 I have also endeavoured to show how, when this is 
 done, the nation will still be less strong than it need be if 
 there be not added to our many existing councils another, 
 to secure that even during peace the benefits which a 
 proper co-ordination of scientific effort in the nation's 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 51 
 
 interest can bring shall not be neglected as they are at 
 present. 
 
 Lest some of you may think that the scientific organ- 
 isation which I trust you will determine to found would 
 risk success in working on such large lines, let me remind 
 you that in 1859, when the late Prince Consort occupied 
 this Chair, he referred to " impediments " to scientific 
 progress, and said, " they are often such as can only be 
 successfully dealt with by the powerful arm of the State 
 or the long purse of the nation." 
 
 If the Prince Consort had lived to continue his 
 advocacy of science, our position to-day would have 
 been very different. His early death was as bad for 
 Britain as the loss of a great campaign. If we cannot 
 make up what we have lost, matters cannot mend. 
 
 I have done what I feel to be my duty in bringing 
 the* present condition of things before you. It is now 
 your duty, if you agree with me, to see that it be put 
 right. You can if you will. 
 
 D 2 
 
APPENDICES 
 
 (0 
 
 THE GERMAN UNIVERSITIES. 1 
 
 WHAT Germany thinks of the place of the University in a 
 modern State can be readily gathered from the large and ever- 
 increasing State endowments of the numerous Universities in 
 Prussia and the other constituent countries. 
 
 The University activity of Prussia itself dates from the time 
 after Jena, 1806, when the nation was, as Sir Rowland 
 Blennerhassett has told us, a bleeding and lacerated mass, so 
 impoverished and shattered that there seemed to be little 
 future before it. King Frederick William III. and his 
 councillors, among them Wilhelm von Humboldt, founded 
 the University of Berlin, " to supply the loss of territory by 
 intellectual effort." Among the universal poverty, money 
 was also found for the Universities of Konigsberg and 
 Breslau, and Bonn was founded in 1818. Observatories and 
 other scientific institutions were not forgotten. As a result of 
 this policy, carried on persistently and continuously by suc- 
 cessive Ministers, aided by wise councillors, many of them the 
 products of this policy, such a state of things was brought 
 about that Palmerston, a typical English statesman, is stated 
 by Matthew Arnold to have defined the Germany of his day 
 as a country of " damned professors," and so well have the 
 damned professors done their work since that not long ago 
 M. Ferdinand Lot, one of the most distinguished educationists 
 of France, accorded to Germany <c a supremacy in science 
 comparable to the supremacy of England at sea." 
 
 The whole history of Prussia since then constitutes indeed 
 a magnificent object lesson on the influence of brain-power on 
 history. There can be no question that the Prussia of to-day, 
 
 1 Nature^ March 12, 1903. 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 53 
 
 the leader of a united Germany, with its armed strength both 
 for peace and war and craving for a wider world dominion, is 
 the direct outcome of the policy of " intellectual effort " 
 inaugurated in 1806. 
 
 The most remarkable thing about the German universities 
 in later years is the constant addition of new departments, 
 added to enable them to meet and even to anticipate the 
 demands made for laboratories in which each scientific subject, 
 as it has been developed, can be taught on Liebig's plan, that 
 is by experiment, observation and research. 
 
 It is in such State-aided institutions as these that the mem- 
 bers of the German Ministry and Parliament, and the leading 
 industrials are trained, while in our case, in consequence of the 
 lack of funds for new buildings at Oxford and Cambridge, and, 
 until not many years ago, the lack of other high-teaching 
 centres, our leaders have had to be content with curricula 
 extant before Galileo was born, the teaching being, perhaps, 
 not so good and the desire to learn generally much less. 
 
 No one will deny that the brain-power of a nation must, in 
 the last resort, depend upon the higher mental training obtain- 
 able in that nation. It is well, therefore, to see how we stand 
 in this matter. 
 
 The following tables will show what the German Govern- 
 ment is doing to provide brain-power in Germany. Those 
 who know most about our British conditions will see how we 
 are likely to fare in any competition with Germany in which 
 brain-power comes in, if indeed there can be any important 
 sphere of activity undertaken by either King, Lords or 
 Commons in which brain-power does not come in. 
 
 We owe the first table giving the facts relating to the ordinary 
 State endowments of the twenty-two German Universities to the 
 kindness of Mr. Alexander Siemens, who was good enough to 
 obtain through official sources an extract from the Preussische 
 Statistik containing an article by Dr. Petersilie. This deals 
 with 1891-2, the last year dealt with by the statistical bureau. 
 
 In the second table are given the extraordinary expenses 
 incurred in the same year, also obtained from Dr. Petersilie's 
 article. There have been added the State endowments for the 
 years 1900-1 and 1902-3, so far as it has been possible to 
 obtain them from Minerva^ in order that the considerable 
 yearly increase in the endowments may be noted. 
 
 It will be seen that those responsible for the continued well- 
 
54 
 
 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 I9S 
 
 
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 x/l O> O N N f^OO vO O 
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BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 
 
 55 
 
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 rllfif III Jill "n" 
 
 ^ N fO ^f in\O Jt^.00 ON O 
 
ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 Endow 
 1891-2. 
 
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 -<t t-> r^OO oo co c^ M ON ON 
 t^OO ONNwONp-ip-iONO 
 T? O fn rooo" ON O^oo" fO 
 
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BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 57 
 
 being of the German State are as busily employed in increasing 
 the efficiency of their Universities as they are in adding to their 
 navy. 
 
 In Britain, there is no concern shown by our Government 
 and politicians in regard to the real sources of national brain- 
 power, towards which primary instruction, now well endowed, 
 is but the first step. Private endowment is still appealed to, 
 though our present unfortunate position comes from the fact 
 that since the necessary introduction of science into the curri- 
 culum of the higher teaching, private endowment in the past 
 has not been, nor in the future will it be, able to supply a tithe 
 of what is really wanted. 
 
 (2) 
 
 THE UNIVERSITIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 1 
 
 Any consideration of what the nation has done for higher 
 education in the United States must be prefaced by a reference 
 to two laws passed in 1787 and 1862 respectively. The first 
 Act, enacted for the Government of the territory north of the 
 Ohio, provided that not more than two complete townships 2 
 were to be given to each State perpetually for the purposes of a 
 c< University to be applied to the intended object by the legisla- 
 ture of the State." In 1862 an Act was passed giving to each 
 State thirty thousand acres of land for each senator and repre- 
 sentative to which the State was then entitled, for the purpose 
 of founding " at least one college, where the leading object 
 shall be, without excluding other scientific and practical 
 studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches 
 of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, 
 in such manner as the legislatures of the States shall respec- 
 tively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal education of the 
 industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of 
 life." ^ 
 
 A reference to Table i. below, showing the number of acres 
 of land in each of the States, the income accruing from which 
 
 1 Nature, May 14, 1903. 
 
 2 In surveys of the public land of the United States, a division of 
 territory six miles square, containing thirty-six sections. 
 
 3 "Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 1896-7." 
 Vol. ii. p. 1145. (Washington, 1898.) 
 
ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 is available for University education, demonstrates more con- 
 clusively than any words could do how very fully advantage 
 has been taken throughout the United States of the legislative 
 enactments of 1787 and 1862. The table is due to Dr. Frank 
 W. Blackmar, and is contained in " The History of Federal 
 
 TABLE I. Land Grants and Reservations for Universities. 
 
 States and Territories. 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Dates of Grant. 
 
 Ohio 
 
 69,120 
 
 1792 1803 
 
 Indiana, 
 
 46,080 
 
 1816, 1804 
 
 
 46,080 
 
 1804, 1818 
 
 Missouri . .... 
 
 46,080 
 
 1818, 1820 
 
 Alabama. 
 
 46,080 
 
 1818, 1819 
 
 Mississippi 
 
 4.6,080 
 
 1803 1819 
 
 Louisiana 
 
 46,080 
 
 1806, 1811, 1827 
 
 Michigan 
 
 46,080 
 
 1836 
 
 Arkansas 
 
 46,080 
 
 1836 
 
 Florida . 
 
 92,160 
 
 l84S 
 
 
 46,080 
 
 1845 
 
 \Visconsin 
 
 92,160 
 
 1846, 18^4 
 
 California . 
 
 46,080 
 
 1853 
 
 
 82,640 
 
 1861, 1857, 1870 
 
 Oregon 
 
 46,080 
 
 1859, 1861 
 
 Kansas . . 
 
 46,080 
 
 1861 
 
 Nevada 
 
 46,080 
 
 1866 
 
 Nebraska .... 
 
 46,080 
 
 1864 
 
 Colorado 
 
 46,080 
 
 1871; 
 
 ^Washington 
 
 4.6,080 
 
 18^4, 1864 
 
 North Dakota! 
 
 46,080 
 
 1881 
 
 South Dakota/ ' 
 Montana 
 
 46,080 
 
 1881 
 
 Arizona Territory 
 Idaho Territory 
 
 46,080 
 46,080 
 
 1881 
 1881 
 
 ^Vyoming Territory 
 
 46,080 
 
 1881 
 
 New Mexico Territory 
 
 46,080 
 
 l8"?4 
 
 Utah Territory 
 
 46,080 
 
 1855 
 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 1,395,920 
 
 
 
 
 
 and State Aid to Higher Education in the United States," 
 published in Washington in 1890. 
 
 The grant of 1862 proved insufficient, and in 1890 an Act 
 for the u more complete endowment of the institutions called 
 into being or endowed by the Act of 1862 " was passed. 
 
 But these land grants do not exhaust the means adopted by 
 the State to encourage higher education in the United States. 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 59 
 
 In the book to which reference has been made, Dr. Blackmar 
 summarises the principal ways in which the several States have 
 aided higher education. They are as follows : 
 
 (1) By granting charters with privileges. 
 
 (2) By freeing officers and students of colleges and Univer- 
 sities from military duties. 
 
 (3) By exempting the persons and properties of the officers 
 and students from taxation. 
 
 (4) By granting land endowments. 
 
 (5) By granting permanent money endowments by statute 
 law. 
 
 (6) By making special appropriations from funds raised by 
 taxation. 
 
 (?) By granting the benefits of lotteries. 
 
 (8) By special gifts of buildings and sites. 
 
 The result is, as Prof. Edward Delavan Perry, of Columbia 
 University, has said, 1 " At the present time, in each of the 
 twenty-nine of the States of the Union, there is maintained a 
 single ' State University ' supported exclusively or prevailingly 
 from public funds, and managed under the more or less direct 
 control of the legislature and administrative officers of the 
 State. These States are the following : Alabama, California, 
 Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, 
 Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, 
 Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South 
 Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washing- 
 ton, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. 
 
 " The universal verdict of public opinion in the States where 
 such institutions are maintained is that they, as State organisa- 
 tions supported directly by public taxation from which no tax- 
 able individual is exempt, should be open without distinction 
 of sex, colour, or religion to all who can profit by the instruc- 
 tion therein given." 
 
 The figures necessary to express how much University edu- 
 cation in the United States owes to the American Govern- 
 ment are large, and the total amount of the aid is enormous. 
 The following table, drawn up with the assistance of the 
 Report of the U.S. Commissioner of Education for the year 
 1899-1900, will enable the reader to form some idea of 
 the splendid resources placed at the command of American 
 
 1 See Prof. Nicholas Murray Butler's monographs on " Education 
 in the United States," vol. i. 
 
6o 
 
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BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 61 
 
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62 
 
 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 Universities. The grand totals under each heading will be found 
 in Tables v. and vi., so arranged as to show the proportion 
 of each total available for the University education of women. 
 
 The Universities and colleges of the United States have 
 another source of income in addition to the generous provision 
 made by the State. Every year wealthy American citizens 
 place large sums of money at the disposal of the educational 
 authorities for the purposes of higher education and the 
 encouragement of scientific research. During the eleven 
 years 18901901, the amount of these donations reached the 
 grand total of nearly 23,000,0007., as Table iii., compiled by 
 Prof. Nicholas Murray Butler, shows : 
 
 TABLE III. Total amount of Benefactions ** to Higher Education in the 
 
 United States. 
 
 Reported in 
 
 1890-91 
 
 1891-92 
 
 1892-93 
 1893-94 
 1894-95 
 1895-96 
 
 , 
 1,515,018 
 
 1,336,917 
 1,343,027 
 1,890,101 
 1,199,645 
 I,8lO,O2I 
 
 Reported in 
 1896-97 
 1897-98 
 1898-99 
 1899-1900 
 1900-01 
 
 1,678,187 
 1,640,856 
 
 4,385,087 
 2,399,092 
 3,608,082 
 
 From 1871-1890, the total amount of benefactions for 
 education of the kind with which this article is concerned was, 
 the annual reports of the U.S. Bureau of Education show, 
 16,285,0007., so that for the years 1871-1901, the grand total 
 of forty millions sterling was raised by private effort for 
 American University education. 
 
 The question naturally presents itself, What has been done 
 by private effort in this country to assist University education 
 during the same period ? Compared with American munifi- 
 cence, the amounts given and bequeathed here are very small. 
 Take in the first place the University Colleges, which are largely 
 to be regarded as a growth of the years under consideration. 
 The financial statements contained in the " Reports from Uni- 
 versity Colleges, 1901," published by the Board of Education, 
 reveal the fact that, including the 400,0007. raised for the 
 University of Birmingham, the benefactions to the fifteen Uni- 
 versity Colleges in Great Britain amounted during 1870-1900 
 
 1 Compiled by Prof. Nicholas Murray Butler, Columbia University, 
 and published in " Special Reports on Educational Subjects," vol. xi. 
 part ii. 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 
 
 to a little more than three millions. In the absence of system- 
 atic reports during the same period of the financial resources of 
 the older Universities of the United Kingdom, it is difficult to 
 estimate the amount of benefactions received by them during 
 the same thirty years. The parliamentary returns which have 
 been published since 1898, showing the revenue of Scottish 
 Universities, suggest that their benefactions in the same time, 
 excluding Mr. Carnegie's splendid gift, may be put at some- 
 thing under half a million, so that for the whole of the United 
 Kingdom the total amount of endowment from private sources 
 
 TABLE IV. Classification of Colleges and Universities for Men and for both 
 Sexes, according to Amount of Endowment Fund. 
 
 56 
 38 
 
 13 
 
 14 
 7 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 8 
 5 
 3 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 raised in these years may, without any risk of under-estimation, 
 be said to be considerably less than five millions. 
 
 To give some idea of the result of the broad-minded policy 
 of the legislatures of the several States and of the treatment 
 which higher education has received at the hands of American 
 statesmen and men of wealth, the following short summaries 
 have been drawn up, with the assistance of the Report of the 
 Commissioner of Education of the United States Bureau at 
 Washington, published in 1901, for the year 18991900. The 
 first (Table iv.) shows the number of colleges having endow- 
 ments of certain specified amounts. The second summary 
 (Table v.) shows the total property of all American University 
 Colleges, tabulated under the headings of fellowships and 
 
 
 
 
 
 20,000 t 
 
 o 40,000 
 
 40,000 
 
 60,000 
 
 60,000 
 
 80,000 
 
 80,000 
 
 100,000 
 
 100,000 
 
 120,000 
 
 120,000 
 
 140,000 
 
 140,000 
 
 160,000 
 
 160,000 
 
 180,000 
 
 180,000 
 
 200,000 
 
 200,000 
 
 250,000 
 
 250,000 
 
 300,000 
 
 300,000 
 
 400,000 
 
 400,000 
 
 600,000 
 
 600,000 
 
 800,000 
 
 800,000 
 
 1,000,000 
 
 1,000,000 
 
 1,500,000 
 
 1,500,000 
 
 2,000,000 
 
 
 Over 2,000,000 
 
64 
 
 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 
 li 
 
 s, 
 
 1 
 
 ^00 
 
 
 
 
 81 
 
 MS I 
 
 B, 
 
 * 
 
 o 
 
 Is 
 
 00 
 
 tutu 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 
 
 scholarships ; values of libraries, apparatus, grounds and build- 
 ings ; and of their productive funds. The next (Table vi.) 
 shows the amounts of income of these colleges, and the last 
 (Table vii.) gives the total number of professors, instructors and 
 students in colleges of University standing. 
 
 It is interesting in this connection to compare the number 
 of students taking University courses in this country with those 
 in Germany and the United States. With this object in view, 
 Table viii. has been prepared, but it should be pointed out that 
 the number of students in our University Colleges includes all 
 above the age of sixteen, which is probably much lower than 
 
 TABLE VII. Professors, Instmctors and Students in Universities and 
 Colleges of United States. 
 
 Institutions. 
 
 Professors and Instructors. 1 
 
 Men. 
 
 Women. 
 
 For 
 For 
 
 men and for both sexes (480 
 institutions) 
 women (141 institutions) 
 
 12,664 
 697 
 
 1,816 
 1,744 
 
 
 Students. 
 
 Men. 
 
 Women. 
 
 Total number of students in Uni- 
 versities and colleges... 
 
 61,800 
 
 35,300 
 
 the age of these students included in the totals for other countries. 
 It is well to remember, too, that the number of American 
 University students is probably too high for a fair comparison 
 with those of Germany. Many University students in the 
 United States are really students in the higher branches of 
 technology, and would in Germany study in technical high 
 schools, the students of which are not included in Germany's 
 total in the table. To make the comparisons as simple as 
 possible the number of University students per ten thousand of 
 population has been calculated. 
 
 The statistics provided above make it possible to form a good 
 estimate of the comparative amounts of importance attached to 
 
 1 Excluding duplicates. 
 
66 
 
 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 higher education in this country and in the United States. 
 Table vi. shows that, neglecting the income accruing from the 
 State land grants, the legislatures of individual States and the 
 U.S. Government together supplied about 900,0007. for Uni- 
 versity education during 1899-1900, while the article 
 
 in 
 
 NATURE for March 12, 1903, shows that the total State aid to 
 Universities and colleges in the United Kingdom at present 
 amounts only to 155,6007. Table vi. also brings out another 
 important principle ; it reveals the fact that during 1899-1900 
 
 TABLE VIII.- 
 
 - Number of University St^^dents per 10,000 of Population 
 (1900). 
 
 Country. 
 
 Population. 
 
 Number of Students. 
 
 i|:l 
 
 United Kingdom 
 
 41,164,000 
 
 Universities 
 University"! 
 Colleges/ 
 
 Day. 
 12,000 
 
 8,500 
 
 Evening 
 
 5,000 
 
 4-98 i 
 
 German Empire 
 United States 
 
 56,367,000 
 76,086,000 
 
 44,400 
 97,100 
 
 7-87 
 1276 
 
 private effort provided more than two and a quarter millions 
 sterling for the colleges of the United States, and thus leads 
 to the conclusion, which is strengthened by Table iii., that 
 interest on the part of the State in higher education leads 
 to a corresponding enthusiasm among men of wealth. 
 
 A comparative study of this kind is of vital national interest ; 
 our very existence as a nation depends directly upon success in 
 that industrial warfare between the great countries of the world 
 from which there can be no peace. The last article in this 
 series has shown the great importance attached by German 
 statesmen to the higher education of the directors of German 
 industries, and how greatly superior is the provision made for 
 this purpose in Germany to that in this country. A similar 
 conclusion is reached by studying the subject from the 
 American point of view ; we are equally behind the United 
 States. Unless our Government, on one hand, and our men of 
 
 1 Excluding evening students of University Colleges. 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 67 
 
 wealth on the other, take immediate steps, and make serious 
 efforts to remedy these deficiencies in our higher education, 
 British manufacturers cannot hope to hold their own success- 
 fully with either German or American competitors. The 
 amount by which we fall short of the United States, the 
 deficiency which must be made good simply to bring us level 
 with America in the race for industrial supremacy, will be seen 
 from the following deductions from the above statistics : 
 
 (1) The amount raised during 1871-1901 by private munifi- 
 cence for higher education was, in the United States, more 
 than eight times that similarly provided in the United Kingdom. 
 
 (2) In addition to the large income from State land grants, 
 the amount provided by the State for higher education is, in the 
 United States, six times as much as the Government grant for 
 the same purpose in the United Kingdom, where there is no- 
 thing corresponding to the land grants. 
 
 (3) In the United States there are 170 colleges with an 
 endowment of more than 2O,ooo/. ; forty-nine of these have 
 endowments of more than ioo,ooo/., and three of more than 
 two millions sterling. In the United Kingdom there are 
 thirteen Universities and twenty other University Colleges. 
 Four of the Universities do little more than examine. 
 
 (4) In the United States nearly thirteen of every ten 
 thousand inhabitants are studying during the day at colleges 
 of University status ; the number in the United Kingdom is 
 less than five. 
 
 (5) The value of the endowments of institutions of higher 
 education in the single State of New York exceeds the total 
 amount of benefactions for similar purposes raised during thirty 
 years in the whole of the United Kingdom. The same is 
 nearly true in the States of Massachusetts and of California. 
 
 (6) The number of 'professors and instructors at the Universities 
 and colleges included in the list of the U.S. Commissioner of 
 Education is 17,000. The number of day students in our 
 Universities and University Colleges is only about 20,500, so 
 that there are almost as many University teachers in the United 
 States as there are University students in the United Kingdom ! 
 
 A careful study of the tables here brought together will do 
 more than anything else to explain the success which has 
 attended American manufactures and commerce in recent years. 
 America has learnt that to energy and enterprise must be added 
 trained intellect and a familiarity with recent advances in 
 
 E 2 
 
68 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 science. Other things being equal, that nation will be most 
 successful in the competition for the markets of the world 
 which makes the most generous provision for the higher 
 education of its people. 
 
 (3) 
 
 THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF 
 BIRMINGHAM. 1 
 
 Among the many documents prepared by Principal Sir 
 Oliver Lodge in relation to the development of the University 
 of Birmingham, there are more than one of which the interest 
 is by no means merely local. Of these, the pamphlet entitled 
 u Survey of the Sciences," which forms an appendix to a paper 
 on University Development, is of especial importance at the 
 present time, for we are glad to know that the belief that the 
 weakness of our Universities must lead to national weakness in 
 several directions is growing with a rapidly accelerating pace. 
 
 It may be long in this slow-moving country before the 
 influence of brain-power on history is recognised as fully as the 
 influence of sea-power has been, thanks to Captain Mahan, but 
 undoubtedly it will be bad for our future if much more time is 
 lost. 
 
 The paper on the " Survey of the Sciences " begins as 
 follows : 
 
 " In a recent pamphlet I considered the question of the relation 
 of the University of Birmingham to its central and suburban 
 sites, with a view of determining what recommendations should 
 be made to the Council concerning the Departments which 
 ought to migrate and the Departments which ought to remain. 
 I was able to arrive at some judgment on the matter except in 
 connection with the Faculty of Science, and there the problem 
 became so complicated that it was necessary to make a survey 
 of the sciences in order to get the material on which to form an 
 opinion. This survey is now printed, not only as an appendix 
 to the former paper, but because it is hoped that it may be 
 useful for other purposes ; especially I hope that it may be of 
 interest to those who are able to help financially in the forth- 
 coming great educational development of the future, enabling 
 
 1 Nature^ January i, 1903. 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 69 
 
 them to realise the immensity of the area which we attempt to 
 cover, and the largeness of the sum which could be properly 
 invested in suitable buildings and equipment and in endowment 
 of staff. Our position is such that if some man of power thought 
 fit to exercise it by entrusting us with a sum of five millions for 
 University development, it could be well and properly 
 employed ; nor could such an investment fail to exercise an 
 extraordinary influence on the progress of the country. 
 Hitherto the ideas of this country in education and scientific 
 research have been conceived on a wholly inadequate scale, 
 and without proper appreciation of the vast extent of territory 
 over which a modern University is called upon to preside." 
 
 After referring to the sciences already dealt with at 
 Birmingham and the collateral branches and practical applica- 
 tions, the pamphlet concludes as follows : 
 
 " In venturing to name such a sum as five millions, I have had 
 in view certain considerations which it may be well to set 
 forth. 
 
 " First it has been found that the Carnegie donation to Scottish 
 Universities is insufficient to attain its objects, and already it 
 appears likely that it may have to be doubled. 
 
 " Next it is well known, and indeed painfully familiar to all 
 who have to do with administration, that every new department 
 started, and every new building erected, means an increase of 
 current expenditure and a drain upon resources. Expenditure 
 is called for on behalf of rates, portering and cleaning, heating 
 and lighting, maintenance, depreciation and supersession of 
 equipment, and materials for experiments and processes. There 
 are also annual grants to be made to the Library, to the various 
 Laboratories and Museums, and to departmental Libraries. 
 Then there is a large disbursement for salaries of demonstrators 
 and curators and assistance and technical instructors. All these 
 expenses come out of revenue, and are probably best 
 provided for by the income derived from fees, and from 
 the contemporary support of County and other bodies 
 so as to preserve dependence on the interest of the living 
 generation. But it is highly desirable to keep fees low 
 not by any means to abolish them, but to keep them low 
 so as to bring higher education within reach of all who are 
 able to make use of it : a number which, with the im- 
 provement of schools, will probably be rapidly increasing. 
 
70 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 Hence it is probable that the above-mentioned items of annual 
 expenditure will absorb the whole of the ordinary annual in- 
 come and leave nothing for the payment of the chief Professors 
 and Lecturers. Everywhere it has been found essential that 
 chairs shall be endowed, so as to put them on a permanent and 
 substantial basis ; moreover, it is vitally important to be able to 
 attract the best men, wherever they are to be found. At the 
 present time it is not usually possible to compete with other 
 places for the best men unless we can offer a sum comparable to 
 iooo/. a year, and in some subjects more. 
 
 " An invested million will therefore on the average relieve the 
 annual income of the stipends for 30 principal chairs. There 
 must be a large number of Lectureships, or subsidiary and 
 supplemental chairs, and 60 of these at 5OO/. each could be 
 provided with the second million. 
 
 " The buildings already in progress on the new site are to cost 
 more than a quarter of a million, and the remainder of what 
 has been sketched out and actually contemplated will cost the 
 other three-quarters. Another half million at least will be 
 needed to equip them properly. 
 
 " The older or central site will also need considerable enlarge- 
 ment, and fresh buildings should rise there. Half a million 
 may be set aside for ultimate building and equipment on and 
 near the Mason College site. 
 
 " Four out of the five millions are thus accounted for ; the 
 fifth is intended for a real attempt at scientific research in all 
 departments. A fund by which men could be sent to any part 
 of the world : to study tropical diseases, or fisheries, or mining 
 possibilities to investigate either nascent industries or injured 
 industries of any kind ; a fund which could equip research 
 laboratories at home, and could defray the expense of researches 
 undertaken on a large or engineering scale, so as to bring in 
 rapidly some practical results. At present there are men who 
 perceive how many things could be reformed or improved, 
 whether in purification of the atmosphere, or in novel modes 
 of locomotion, or in many other ways ; but they lack the 
 means to demonstrate their plans or to try experiments. 
 Manufacturers and Municipalities sometimes try experiment 
 on a very extensive scale indeed a really commercial scale 
 and in case of failure the resulting experience is over-dear. 
 The endowment would not allow experiments on such a scale 
 as that ; considering the variety of subject, the amount available 
 
BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 71 
 
 for each would permit of no extravagance. Some of the experi- 
 ments undertaken would undoubtedly fail, yet the success of 
 a few would far more than compensate for the failure of many, 
 and the activity could not but conduce to progress. 
 
 "The fund would have to provide not only the necessary 
 appliances and assistance, but it would endow fellowships for 
 post-graduate study, and would attract workers from many parts 
 of the world, and certainly from the Colonies. 
 
 " One Principal could not possibly supervise all the multifarious 
 activities which we have thus supposed may some day be called 
 into being. There would have to be a Research Principal 
 (whatever he might be called), to organise and superintend the 
 scientific and post-graduate study ; a Technical Director, in 
 touch with all the technical departments ; and an Educational 
 or General Head, to supervise the general scheme of the 
 College in all its various avenues to a degree, and to take a lead 
 in whatever conduced to general culture. 
 
 " If the scheme is lavish it represents lavishness in the right 
 place. It is the kind of lavishness for which the nation is 
 waiting one of the few kinds of which hitherto it has been 
 afraid. 
 
 " ' There is that scattereth but yet increaseth : 
 There is that withholdeth more than is meet, but 
 it tendeth to poverty.' 
 
 " These lines refer not to individual wealth alone, but to 
 National wealth also. We have failed to make the most 
 hitherto of the brains and energy of our more able and 
 specially-gifted youth, but have cramped them by the necessity 
 of earning a living : a process wholesome enough for the in- 
 dividual, and right for 999 out of every thousand, but for the 
 remaining one far less repaying to the Commonwealth than the 
 special service which he could render, if set free and encouraged 
 by suitable surroundings for a few years of research, fol- 
 lowing on a thorough educational preparation. Not all of 
 these would justify their selection : nine-tenths of them even 
 might do only moderately well ; but the discoveries of the select 
 tenth would be of incalculable value. The world has been 
 wasteful of its genius hitherto. It thinks too facilely that people 
 exceptionally endowed will struggle to the front somehow. A 
 few do, but a number do not ; the conditions are not favourable ; 
 .and the struggle for existence, though doubtless a stimulating 
 
72 ON THE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 training for the hardier and sturdy virtues, is not the right 
 atmosphere for the delicate plant called genius. Different kinds 
 of treatment are suited to different characters, and the hot- 
 house plant will not thrive in bracing arctic air. 
 
 "From the Trust Deed with which Mr. Carnegie has endowed 
 a research Institution at Washington with ten million dollars, 
 I extract the following altogether admirable statement of 
 ' aims ' : 
 
 " c i. To promote original research : paying great attention 
 thereto, as one of the most important of all departments. 
 
 u c 2. To discover the exceptional man in every department 
 of study, whenever and wherever found, inside or outside of 
 schools ; and to enable him to make the work for which he 
 seems specially designed his life-work. 
 
 " * 6. To ensure the prompt publication and distribution of 
 the results of scientific investigation ; a field considered highly 
 important. 
 
 . . . " ' The chief purpose of the founder being to secure if 
 possible for the United States of America leadership in the 
 domain of discovery, and the utilisation of new forces for the 
 benefit of man.' " 
 
 (4) 
 
 THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE WELSH UNIVER- 
 SITY AND COLLEGES. 1 
 
 We saw that the great bulk of the endowments of the 
 German Universities was provided by the State, 81 per cent, 
 of the total being so provided in Prussia, and 74 per cent, in 
 Germany as a whole. Wales, happily or unhappily, possesses 
 comparatively few men whose individual possessions could 
 enable them to take part in endowing her colleges in any 
 way commensurate with the need. Of the sums that have 
 been raised for buildings, a great part has been collected, at 
 the cost of heaithy but disproportionate effort, from the shil- 
 lings and pence of artisans and small farmers or traders. It 
 is not surprising, therefore, to find that the colleges and the 
 University depend already mainly upon public funds. The 
 County Council grants to Cardiff and Aberystwyth must in 
 
 l Nature, July 16, 1903. 
 
BRAIN-POWER COST "HISTORY 73 
 
 fairness be counted as fees, not endowments, since they are 
 given in return for teaching a definite class of students, and a 
 change of policy in the local authorities might at any time 
 modify or even divert their contributions. The figures are 
 approximately 1 as follows, reckoning the interest on investments, 
 as heretofore, at i\ per cent., and including in the Govern- 
 ment grants those devoted to special objects, such as agricul- 
 ture, and the training of primary teachers. 
 
 Present Endowment of University Education in Wales. 
 
 Income from 
 
 Private 
 Endowments. 
 
 
 
 University College, Aberystwyth 375 
 
 University College, Bangor ... 1225 
 
 University College, Cardiff 750 2 
 
 The University of Wales ... ... ... 
 
 Totals 2350 
 
 Percentages 10 
 
 Income from 
 
 Government 
 
 Grants. 
 
 
 
 6000 
 6000 
 5250 
 4000 
 
 21,250 
 90 
 
 There is only one conclusion. In great cities like Liverpool 
 and Manchester there is accumulated wealth and an accumu- 
 lated tradition of culture to which their colleges have appealed 
 with some success. In Wales the culture has been for cen- 
 turies remote from University life, and the wealth, as we have 
 seen, is non-existent. If, therefore, the Government wishes 
 that the 2i,ooo/. a year which it now spends in grants to the 
 colleges and the University of Wales shall not be wasted, it is 
 high time that it should face the question of what they really 
 need. 
 
 In order to represent these needs in as concrete a form as 
 possible, we have made inquiries as to the sums which, in the 
 opinion of responsible persons at each college, would suffice to 
 place them in a position to discharge their work with real 
 efficiency. In each case we shall mention two capital sums, 
 the one that required to construct or complete the buildings 
 and equipment of the college, the other that required as an 
 endowment for maintenance, the interest in this latter case 
 being reckoned at 1\ per cent. Aberystwyth has from the 
 
 1 The exact figures vary slightly from year to year. 
 
 2 Including the annual grant of 3 so/, from the Drapers' Company 
 for engineering. 
 
74 
 
 BRAIN-POWER ON HISTORY 
 
 first been the most fortunate of the three colleges in the matter 
 of buildings, so that its needs under this head are smaller ; 
 similarly Bangor needs slightly less towards maintenance as 
 being possessed of somewhat larger invested endowments, 
 Cardiff and Aberystwyth having only very small possessions of 
 this kind ; trust-funds for scholarships are, of course, disregarded 
 altogether in the estimate. 
 
 The figures assume that the present Government grants 
 will continue, and under both heads state the sums needed in 
 addition to all the resources the colleges at present possess. 
 
 Funds needed for University Education in Walts. 
 
 
 A. For Buildings 
 and equipment. 
 
 B. For Endowment. 
 
 University College, Aberystwyth 
 University College, Bangor ... 
 University College, Cardiff 
 The University of Wales 
 
 99,800 
 176,500 
 l62,OOO 
 
 1,071,500 
 960,400 
 1,176,400 
 288,400 
 
 Totals 
 
 /d.38 300 
 
 /"3.4.Q6.7OO 
 
 
 
 
 Grand total .. 
 
 /"3.Q* 
 
 
 In round figures, therefore, we may say that University edu- 
 cation in Wales needs an endowment of four millions sterling 
 to secure its efficiency. This will not be thought an extra- 
 vagant figure when it is remembered that the need of the 
 Birmingham University was estimated at five millions, and 
 that the Welsh colleges minister to the needs of a far more 
 -diverse population. The agriculture, the manufactures, the 
 mining and the over-sea commerce of Wales all demand the 
 enlightenment and intelligence which can only be developed 
 in Universities efficiently equipped for their work. 
 
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