That discoverers are not treated by us as we treat other valuable members of the community is quite clear; either a physician, a judge, divine, lawyer, or railway superintendent of high ability, obtain from one to many thousand pounds a year, but a discoverer in pure physics or chemistry is, in scarcely any case, paid anything for his labour. That most eminent discoverer, Faraday, received for his scientific lectures at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, only £200 a year and apartments, during many years, and absolutely nothing for his great discoveries; and during the remainder of his life he only received a few hundred pounds per annum, including a pension of £300 pounds a year from Government. In contrast with this, the general manager of the Midland Railway has £4,000 a year. A General of our army receives £2,000, and a Field Marshal £4,000 a year (See "Whitaker's Almanack," 1873, pp. 121 and 138). A Head Master of either of the great public schools obtains from £3,000 a year upwards. An Archbishop of Canterbury receives £15,000 a year, besides a great amount of influence and power in the form of patronage to 183 livings, a palatial residence, and a seat in the House of Peers. A Bishop of London has £10,000, the patronage of 98 livings, and a seat in the House of Lords. I do not,
however, mean to imply that these large emoluments are not deserved. Whilst also there are nearly 13,000 church benefices in England (See the "Clergy List," also "Whitaker's Almanack," 1873, pp. 153 and 155, and "Walford's County Families," 1872, pp. 173 and 610), there is scarcely a single appointment entirely devoted to scientific discovery, nor a single professorship in original research in science. I leave my readers to judge to what extent these instances illustrate the statement that discoverers are not treated by us as we treat other valuable members of the community. Partly in consequence of the foregoing neglect, the proportion of persons wholly devoted to scientific research in this country probably does not much exceed one in one million of the population.
It is scarcely credible that in a wealthy and civilized country, whilst the non-productive classes are protected in the enjoyment of titles and material wealth which in many cases they have not earned, the greatest scientific benefactors of the nation are constrained to live in straitened circumstances whilst working for the pecuniary and other advantages of those classes, and of manufacturers, capitalists, land-owners, and the nation in general. By these remarks it is not intended to imply that discoverers are intentionally neglected; but that the injustice they suffer is a disgrace to this country, and reflects discredit upon the governing classes, and especially upon those who reap the greatest advantage.
The men who are rewarded highly in this country are not always those who yield the greatest service to the nation, but frequently those who render the most immediate or most apparent benefit; to stop short at this cannot produce the greatest degree of success. The national services of a great discoverer are probably not equalled by those of any man. Who can estimate the value of the commercial, social, moral, political, and other great advantages to the world, of Oersted's discovery of the principle of electro-magnetism, which enabled the invention of the electric telegraph to be made? The men we reward the highest are not those who discover knowledge, but those who use or apply it; physicians, judges, bishops, lawyers, railway managers, military and naval officers, and head masters of schools, all of them gentlemen who render great services to the nation, by using, diffusing, and applying knowledge already possessed.
It requires less rare ability to apply knowledge to new purposes by means of invention, than to discover it; it is still less difficult to diffuse it by means of tuition and lectures, because the labours of a teacher consist largely of a repitition of other men's discoveries and inventions; and to use scientific knowledge in the ordinary business of every-day life, requires a still more common degree of ability.
A chief reason why ordinary business capacity is paid for whilst original research is not, is the fact that research is not considered a necessity; many
persons do not perceive its immense future value. Men perform those duties first which they feel they must: they are also willing to pay for the performance of those duties which press most urgently upon them, and defer all other kinds of labour that they consider will bear postponement. Most men act upon this rule, until they acquire a habit of sacrificing the future to the present, of neglecting more important matters in order to attend to less, and of living too much for money, without sufficient regard for the more valuable condition, viz., individual and national improvement. These circumstances also largely explain the fact that it requires more pressure to induce individuals or governing bodies to aid original research than to assist any other good object. Other chief reasons why persons in general cannot perceive the great practical value of new scientific truth are, because the perception of it requires a scientifically trained mind. The greatest truths are frequently the least obvious, and are therefore valued the least.
It may be objected that research is not aided, because it sometimes takes a long time to acquire a practical shape and make it pay. We do not omit to plant an acorn because it requires many years to become an oak; we do not neglect to rear a child because he may not live to become a man; but we leave scientific discovery to take care of itself. The intense desire which exists in this country for "quick returns" has shewn itself in the much greater readiness to aid technical education than to promote
permanent progress by means of original research. But the discoveries made in such a place as the Royal Institution of Great Britain have had a vastly greater beneficial effect upon civilization than that of any technical institution which has ever existed.