Prof. Exner on Science and the State

Abstract

THE Vienna correspondent of the Times, writing on the 7th inst., comments upon a recent address of Prof. Exner which deals with the coming rule of technically trained men, that is, of men who can apply the principles of natural science; engineers trained in colleges as well as in works. The encouragement to scientific education given by foreign statesmen excites in this country only a feeble attention not unmixed with contempt. With us, higher education is still what it was in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and its advocates affirm that the education of men like Burleigh and Bacon, of Coke and Raleigh is good enough for statesmen of the twentieth century. This explains our difficulty in understanding Prof. Exner. Much of the pure science of the world is due to such British genius as could escape the academic net, and yet the power to apply that science is carefully kept away from the British people. We have started all the branches of engineering; we have invented nearly all the important things, but the great development of these things has gone out of the hands of the amateurs of our nation. It is because our statesmen are Gallios who “care for none of these things,” because they know nothing of science. Huxley failed to move them. The German Emperor's fosterage of engineering only amuses them, and hence our manufacturers blame everything except their own ignorance for their loss of trade. Prof. Exner wants to put the technically educated man in charge of all departments of Government which have to do with manufacture and distribution; with the use of all tools, including, we presume, guns and other weapons of destruction. He does not seem to know what is so obvious to us in England, that the Ministers in charge of departments must have had such a training of another kind that it is impossible for them also to be engineers. All we ask is that they shall know just a little about science, so that they may be able to take scientific advice. But alas! even this condition of things is remote. However important it would be to have men of the quality of engineers as their advisers or in charge of the various parts of a great department, there are qualifications more important—power to coax the Treasury for necessary money; social qualities such as come from good birth and enable one to keep one's superiors favourably disposed; qualities created by official life which enable one to work obediently as part of the official machine and never get into a rage; the knowledge that if ever there is a conflict between official law and a law of nature, it is the official law which must be obeyed. For our reform what is wanted is a cataclysm, rather destructive, but not too much so.