Government Aid to Scientific Research

Abstract

WE publish below a correspondence which we cannot but regard with the greatest satisfaction; Government has at last seen it to be its duty to act upon the recommendation of the Duke of Devonshire's Commission, and make a substantial contribution towards the endowment of pure scientific research. We need scarcely remind our readers that from the first we have maintained that such endowment is the duty and interest of civilised states. But indeed it is long since the British Government practically acknowledged this to be the case; the grant of 1,000l. yearly to the Royal Society for purposes of research was first made twenty-five years ago. We hope the additional 4,000l., making up 5,000l., will be put to such excellent use that Government will not only renew the grant at the end of the five years, but see the necessity of increasing it to at least the sum suggested when the 1,000l. was first granted. No doubt the first to bring the duty of the State in respect to science prominently before the public in this country was the late Colonel Strange. He broached his scheme many years ago at the Norwich meeting of the British Association, and by his earnest and untiring advocacy he soon gained to his views most of the scientific men of the country, and Government became so impressed with the importance of the subject that the Science Commission was appointed in 1870. The substance of the various Reports of this Commission is familiar to our readers; the mass of evidence it has elicited has probably done more than anything else to enlighten the country and our Government as to the high importance and wide extent of scientific research. We can hardly expect Government to carry out all at once the recommendations of the Commissioners as to the extent to which unremunerative research should be assisted; but no doubt the 4,000l. which is to be annually entrusted to the administration of the Royal Society for the next five years, is the first, partly tentative step towards this. Then there were the strong words of Lord Derby, at Edinburgh, last December (see NATURE, vol. xiii. p. 141): “I think,” he said, “that more liberal assistance in the prosecution of original scientific research is one of the recognised wants of our time.” As the natural outcome of all this, and no doubt mainly as the result of the recommendations of the Science Commission, the Government has resolved to try what good results are likely to follow from a first and moderate endowment. We think we may safely prophecy that the result is likely in time to lead to the increase of the grant to at least the sum proposed to be entrusted to the Royal Society twenty-five years ago.