community upon particular researches or upon an individual investigator, does not directly produce an immediate return; practically an immediate and direct benefit is received by that community, because new scientific knowledge for the use of teachers and popular lecturers, and new inventions based upon it, of local value to that society, continually become public. Every civilized community has also received beforehand such benefits to an enormous extent; and each investigator may reasonably claim public support on the ground that he contributes to the general stock of new knowledge. Some persons however, who have not fully considered the subject, wish to receive not only the advantages accruing from the common stock of knowledge, but also to reserve to themselves the entire benefit arising from their own special contributions.
Experience alone will prove which of the foregoing schemes is the most suitable in this country, or in particular cases. At present the plan largest in operation is the system of Government Grants, next in magnitude are the other funds distributed by the Royal Society, the British Association, the Chemical Society, the Royal Institution, the Birmingham Philosophical Society, and those provided by the munificence of private individuals. It is greatly to be hoped that the liberal spirit of private individuals will yet further remove the great blot which lies upon the reputation of the wealthy manufacturers, capitalists, and land-owners, who have derived such great profits from
scientific research and have scarcely aided it at all in return. It is also to be desired that the Corporations of manufacturing towns will recognise the value of original scientific enquiry to their fellow townsmen, and will undertake the responsibility of voting money from municipal funds to promote it.
Notes
[2] Essays and Addresses, Owen's College, 1874, pp. 172-182.
[3] See Chapter 2, Section B.
[4] In the year 1870, a gentleman of the name of Davis bequeathed £2,000 to the Royal Institution, London, to aid original scientific research.
[5] As a notable exception to the above statement:—"Scientific research has now an Institute of its own in Birmingham, without being indebted to the public funds. A fund has already been collected for carrying on the work. The building is called 'The Institute of Scientific Research.'" See Nature, January 7th, 1881, p. 366; the Athenæum, February 5th, 1881, p. 204; the English Mechanic, p. 537, February 11th, 1881.