THE PROSPECTS OF THE ENDOWMENT OF RESEARCH

Abstract

WITH this number a new volume of NATURE is commenced, and consequently it will not be inappropriate to take the opportunity of presenting some sort of review of the present position of a subject towards which we have always been ready to devote much of our space. We propose to show that the important evidence given before the Royal Commission on the Advancement of Science, and the Reports which that Commission has already issued, have not been without influence in the matter, whilst the publication of the Report of the University Commissioners renders it the more necessary not to relax our efforts in pressing this question continually upon the public. It is most encouraging also to notice as another symptom that ordinary opinion is gradually coming round to the views we have so long advocated, that the daily and weekly press have during the past month opened their columns to articles and correspondence on this subject, and that journalists no longer regard the proposal to endow scientific research as a visionary and wild scheme, but now consider it worthy of much consideration and intelligent criticism. Even at the Universities considerable progress in the right direction seems to have been made, which is the more deserving of attention when it is recollected that the Colleges have in most cases great constitutional difficulties to overcome before that they can carry into execution the smallest reform.