The present staff consists of the Disney professor of archæology, and a lecturer on ethnology with a salary of £50 a year. The only accommodation for the latter is a room in the basement of the medical school, where he takes classes in practical work. Physical anthropology is associated more directly with the department of human anatomy, and is represented by another lecturer at £50 a year. The collection of skulls brought together by Professor Macalister affords unrivalled material for demonstrations; and, as two recent volumes from the pen of Dr. Duckworth show, good use is made of the material. The University has recently recognized the importance of anthropology by adopting a scheme for granting degrees for research in this subject.
The growing importance of the architect’s profession, and the widespread recognition of the fact that the young architect must have a preliminary scientific training, point to the desirability of establishing a school of architecture at Cambridge, resting on the one hand on the engineering school, and on the other on the Slade professorship of fine arts, and the school of archæology. The school might be organized on lines similar to those of the medical school; and the young architect would pass his early years of professional study on thoroughly practical lines, in the midst of admirable examples of almost all the different styles.
In 1877 Cambridge led the way in that difficult science called sometimes physiological psychology, sometimes experimental psychology, and sometimes psychophysics. In that year the present professor of mental philosophy and logic, and Dr. Venn, made a vigorous effort to establish a psychophysical laboratory. They unfortunately failed; had they succeeded, Cambridge would have possessed the first laboratory of this kind in the world. In 1878 Wundt opened his laboratory at Leipzig; and there are now some seven psychophysical laboratories in Germany, two in Russia, ten in the United States, one in Copenhagen, one in Paris, one in Geneva, and one in Canada. It is not that psychophysics is not studied in Cambridge, for Dr. Rivers, the lecturer on the subject, and Dr. Myers, have formed a school there which is second to none in Great Britain; this school has recently supplied a reader to Oxford. But the work is done under most discouraging circumstances. The laboratory is at present established in a dilapidated cottage in Mill Lane and in an adjacent disused granary. Further and better provision for this growing subject is urgent; and the present lectureship should be converted into a readership. The interest which is taken in the subjects under the control of the Board of Moral Science is shown by the successful launching of the Journal of Psychology, the first number of which was published by the University Press in 1904. Lecture-rooms and a departmental library are wanted; and the establishment of a readership in pedagogy should not be long delayed.
In mathematics two new professorships are needed, one in pure mathematics and one in applied mathematics; two of the present lecturers should be made readers; and the salaries of all the lecturers should be raised to £100 a year. One pressing need is that for two lecture-rooms, with an adjacent library and a museum of mathematical models. Cambridge is perhaps the most renowned mathematical school in the world; yet its provision for the accommodation of the staff is far behind that of the chief American Universities. A munificent benefactor has recently left a sum of £5,000 for repairs, etc., to the Newall telescope; but there is no stipend forthcoming for Mr. Newall, who for sixteen years has discharged the duties of observer without remuneration. The Lowndean and Plumian professors pay the salary of a demonstrator.
The Cavendish laboratory, owing to the position it has for years taken in the promotion of physical research, is overcrowded with students and researchers. Lord Rayleigh has most generously given to the University the Nobel prize gained by him in 1904. Of this benefaction, £5,000 have been assigned as a contribution towards the desired new wing; but money will be required for maintenance; and the professor estimates that a sum of £7,500 is now wanted for instruments, machinery, and laboratory fittings. The professor of chemistry asks for more apparatus and higher stipends for his teachers. He draws attention to the need for a metallurgical laboratory, the provision of which, in view of the recent establishment of a diploma in mining engineering, is urgent. Mineralogy asks only for a trained attendant and £35 a year; but for meteorology there is no real provision.
The Sedgwick museum, in which the department of geology is now housed, has involved much expense in furnishing. Although the existing furniture was all retained, there is still a demand for more cabinets; and Professor Hughes would like to spend £2,800 on these alone, while a large sum should be set apart for maintenance, wages, and the increase of stipends. The demands of botany are not yet completely satisfied. A readership to deal with the newly recognized study of scientific forestry has recently been created.
In zoology, if we leave out of account the need for higher stipends for teachers and higher wages for attendants, which runs like a thread through all the departments, there are two chief requirements. The first is for a new or, at any rate, a greatly enlarged museum. It is doubtful if the existing site is large enough to allow an adequate increase to the present structure; and to build a new building on another site would probably cost £30,000; nevertheless, with the ever-increasing collections housed in rooms already overstocked, this expenditure must soon be faced.
A branch of experimental science dealing with the study of variation and heredity in plants and animals has recently arisen, and has already attained very considerable proportions in Cambridge. It seems, indeed, that we are entering on a period when such studies will absorb the energies of most of the younger biological students. Under Mr. Bateson some twelve researchers are already at work following out Mendel’s law in many varieties of plant and animal. The extreme importance of these studies, which, if they prove a key to heredity, will place in man’s hands an instrument as powerful as Watt’s application of steam, is shown by the fact that Mr. Biffen has already discovered that susceptibility to rust in wheat is Mendelian, and is thus a property which may be eliminated by breeding. For all these studies land is required, as well as a greenhouse, outbuildings, and a trained gardener. None of these is as yet attainable.
The recent discoveries of the protozoic origin of malaria, sleeping-sickness, and other human and many other animal diseases, has directed attention both to the protozoa, with their complicated life-histories, and to the insects which convey them from one creature to another. Both protozoa and insects are highly specialized groups of animals. The establishment, by the aid of the Quick bequest, of a chair of protozoology will do something to meet the necessities of the case, so far as the protozoa are concerned; but some provision for the study of the insects is still needed.
A chair of physiological chemistry is urgently wanted. The pressing problems of the day in physiology require a chemical solution. Remarkable strides have already been made in this subject; the interaction of the various tissues of the body by means of the blood, the functions of the ductless glands, the problems of immunity, are all being worked out upon a chemical basis. In this country there are but two professors of physiological chemistry, whereas in Germany there are eleven, in Austria eight, in France six. That Great Britain is lamentably behind in this branch of learning is even more markedly shown when we consider the output of original memoirs. In 1903 over 3,000 papers, written by some 2,500 workers, were published; to this total the United Kingdom contributed no more than seventy. Cambridge has produced many brilliant physiologists; but the school cannot afford the outlay for even a necessary piece of apparatus costing £10; and the demonstrators pay, out of their pittances, part of the wages of their attendants.