4th. Aid to Professors of Science in Colleges.—Another way by which research might be promoted, would be by giving assistance in the form of a definite amount of additional salary, for the purpose of pure research, to professors and teachers in colleges and institutions; the money being supplied by the State or from the funds of the Institution. In carrying out this plan, it would be necessary to assist only those persons who had already published a good research, and thus proved their ability; and who would engage to devote a definite portion of their time to the labour as a part of their duty. The selection of suitable men might be made with the advice of the Council of the Royal Society.
The additional salary should be entirely in the form of remuneration for labour, time, and materials, etc., expended upon research in pure science, and not in effecting inventions. The knowledge obtained should be treated as public property, and be published in the usual manner, and the investigator should not be permitted to sell or patent it. It would be necessary to provide that in case the investigator failed to make or publish a reasonable amount of good research, the additional salary should cease. Publication in the journals of the Royal Society, or in a leading scientific magazine, might be considered a sufficient proof of the satisfactory quality of the labour.
It is very desirable that all the higher teachers and professors of science in our educational institution should devote a portion of their time to original research. It would make their lectures more reliable, because research yields experience in the detection of error; whilst there is usually only one way of succeeding in making an experiment, there are always many ways of failing, and in the directions given in books, the latter are usually omitted. It would also induce the students to take a greater interest in the subject, and feel more respect for the teacher. The special excellence of the German system of teaching consists in the union of teaching and original research. This plan of aiding research would induce some of our teachers of science who have not yet made researches, to attempt such labour, it would also develope a superior class of scientific teachers generally; and produce a supply of candidates for professorships of research.
A great obstacle to the carrying out of this plan lies in the fact that in consequence of the ignorance of the value of original research by the founders of such Institutions, no definite provision usually exists in the Trust deeds to authorise the Trustees to devote any of the funds to such a purpose.
5th. Extension of the Government Grant System.—During a number of years the British Government has entrusted to the Royal Society the annual sum of £1,000 for the purpose of aiding science; and that sum has been given in varying portions to different investigators who have applied for grants in aid of their expenses in making investigations.
Although the total amount to be disbursed annually was not large, very few persons, qualified to make good researches, usually applied for its assistance, and it was difficult to dispose of the whole. The chief causes of this difficulty were:—a grant from the fund was an unprofitable gift to accept, because it was only sufficient to partly pay the expenses out of pocket for chemicals and apparatus, and allowed nothing for the skill, time, or labour, nor for payments made to assistants. Further, "By order of the Council, all instruments, apparatus, and drawings, made or obtained by aid of the Government Grants, shall, after serving the purpose for which they were procured, and in the absence of any specific understanding to the contrary, be delivered into the custody of the Royal Society."
By far the greater part of the expense of an investigation in physics or chemistry is the exceedingly large
amount of time it occupies. Many necessary preliminary experiments have to be made, which yield either negative, unsuccessful, or incomplete results, and make the undertaking expensive. A good investigation in chemistry also not unfrequently costs the investigator a sovereign a day if he is wholly employed upon it. In some cases, for each £100 received as a grant, at least a £1,000, was directly and indirectly expended. Any person therefore who undertook a research became a loser, and aid from the Government Grant fund did not entirely cover his loss. Only scientific men who had other sources of income were able to avail themselves of the grants. The existence of the grants also was not widely known. The advantages of the plan were, it diminished the loss to the investigator, and the fact of being allotted a sum from the fund was considered highly creditable to the recipient.
In consequence largely of the evidence collected from eminent men of science from all parts of Great Britain, and the recommendations based upon it, by the Royal Commission for the Advancement of Science, the Grant system has been extended; our Government recently placed an additional amount of £4,000 a year, for five years, to be distributed in sums at the recommendation of the Royal Society to suitable applicants, and the five years have now elapsed.