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 dealing 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, continuous, 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 interest can bring shall not be neglected as they are at present.

Lest some of you may think that the scientific organisation 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 bave 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.

THE NATIONAL NEED OF THE STATE

ENDOWMENT OF UNIVERSITIES.*

(1904.)

(1) The British Association has taken action regarding the State endowment of universities, because at the present juncture the highest education and research is a matter not merely of academic but of the gravest national

concern.

There is now a general opinion that Britain is in danger of falling behind in the industrial competition now going on between the most highly civilised States.

The university no less than the primary school is in question, because we are in the midst of a struggle in which science and brains take the place of swords and sinews; the school, the university, the laboratory and the workshop are the battlefields of this new struggle, and the scientific spirit must not be limited to the workshop, since other nations utilise it in all branches of their administration and executive.

The more our legislators, administrators and executive officers possess the scientific spirit, and the more the rule of thumb is replaced by scientific methods, the

* Statement prepared by the author as President of the British Association and revised by a committee consisting of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, Sir Oliver Lodge, Principal of the University of Birmingham, Sir Michael Foster, M.P., and Sir Henry Roscoe.

more able shall we be to compete successfully with other countries along all lines of national as well as of commercial activity.

It is a question of an important change of front, of finding a new basis of stability for the Empire in face of new conditions; and since the full life of a nation with a constantly increasing complexity, not only industrial but of high national aims, depends upon the universal presence of the scientific spirit, of brain-power, our whole national life is involved.

The Function of a University in a Modern State.

The men upon whom the nation must chiefly depend for aid under the complex conditions of the modern world must not be entirely untrained in the study of the nature and causes of the things which surround them, or of the forces which have to be utilised in our daily life; their training and education in humanities must also have been of the widest.

Such men cannot be produced either by a university which neglects science or by a technical college which neglects the humanities.

Hence the universities must be enabled to combine these two sides of a complete education, and they must also be enabled to foster research along both lines, for research is the highest and most important instrument of education, as well as its most valuable result. When science and its applications were of less importance than now the humanities sufficed and university requirements were small; rooms, books and a small number of teachers of a small number of subjects comprised the essentials of the university. Modern

university needs have been too much regarded from this old standpoint.

All this is now changed. For instance, in the most modern German university the buildings, all elaborate and all differing from each other, have already cost a million, and still the university is not complete. Books have to be supplemented by expensive instrumental equipments, which constantly have to be added to or replaced, and by utilising this new material the fruitful ramifications of learning have increased fiftyfold, and the teachers naturally in even greater proportion.

The extraordinary thing is not that a claim to meet these new conditions is made now, but that we have waited so long for it in this country while other countries faced them long ago.

The Money.

Money is required at the present moment for :(1) Buildings and equipments for pure and applied science in both old and new universities.

(2) Pay and pensions of an increased number of professors, demonstrators, etc., in pure and applied science in both old and new universities.

(3) Strengthening of science teaching and research in all, and of the humanities in the new universities. (4) Reduction of fees, and the wide educational enfranchisement of proved ability in all classes.

Hitherto universities have looked mainly to private endowments. Universities have been regarded too much as luxuries of the rich, and perhaps on this ground higher education has been treated by the Government