Scientific research is a delicate plant, and the secret of the way in which it may be nurtured has not been revealed to dignitaries and officials. It is interesting to note some of the methods which have been tried with the object of nurturing scientific discovery. In every case the donor has chosen or created an electing body or trustees of which I will say more below. He has directed this body to expend his gift with a view to the promotion of scientific discovery in one of the following ways: (1) in awarding prizes for discoveries made; (2) in terminable stipends to junior and senior workers selected by the trustees and called scholars or fellows, the stipends being given on condition of their holders devoting themselves for a few years to the attempt to make discoveries; (3) in permanent salaries to tried men, who are thus paid as professors or directors of laboratories and museums; (4) in providing specially designed buildings and apparatus for research, but no salaries for the workers; (5) in providing, on whatever scale the fund given permits, groups consisting of a professor or director, two or more assistants, attendants, building, apparatus, and the annual income necessary for materials of investigation and maintenance of the establishment. As to the trustees, or boards of electors, chosen by the donor, they are often some established scientific society or some university, or the board may be specially appointed by him. The last is the best sort of body, if properly constituted, but not unfrequently the perplexed promoter of scientific discovery finds himself assenting to the constitution of what is called "a representative body"—say, a bishop, a town councillor, a Secretary of State, a judge, and a university professor, with other members to be nominated by himself or his heirs. Such a board fails from a want of knowledge.

The methods of applying the income provided by the donor are not always such as to produce any marked result in the direction desired by him. It is generally agreed among scientific workers and experts that the giving of prizes or rewards for scientific discovery does not tend to increase the output of discoveries, however carefully and justly awarded. Though such an award as the £8000 or £10,000 of the Nobel prizes is a very agreeable compliment to the man so honoured, and often richly deserved, no one would urge a would-be promoter of scientific discovery to devote his gift to the foundation of prizes. And so, too, with regard to scholarships or fellowships, it is very generally and rightly held that they do little or nothing in promoting scientific discovery when they are small in value and are only to be held for two or three years. When a young man has taken his university degree in science or medicine a scholarship or fellowship of £250 a year for three years offers no inducement to him, if he is an able man, to abandon his regular professional career. If he accepts it, he will have had no time to go far on the path of discovery before it comes to an end, and he will find at the end of his three years that he has lost that amount of time so far as his profession is concerned, and that there is no life post or career open to him in the line in which he has spent three years—namely, that of a scientific investigator. As a rule, able men will not be drawn off in this way from their professions, but inferior men may be.

The man, on the other hand, who is specially gifted with the power of scientific discovery will not be affected by such temporary fellowships. He will enter on the career of discovery with or without such inducements. What such a man (and he is the only sort of man who matters) really requires, and should find open to him, is an assured career. This must take the form in the first place of a smaller post as assistant to a great discoverer, tenable for twenty years if need be, and subsequently a life post, with laboratory and assistants, when he has proved his possession of the discoverer's quality. Hence it is that what the benevolent millionaire who wishes to promote scientific discovery should do is to provide life posts, "professorships" or "directorships," for the really great discoverers, who exist often in cramped conditions. They should be of the value of £1500 to £3000 a year—not too large a stipend in view of the incomes earned by successful professional men and assigned by Government to judges, bishops, colonial governors, senior civil servants, and politicians—with two or three assistantships of £150 to £500 a year attached, to be filled up by nominations made by the professor himself as vacancies occur. A sum of £7500 a year, that which Mr. Otto Beit has so generously given, would pay for one professor, with three assistants, attendants, and interest on building and maintenance fund. Of course, if such a sum were offered to an existing institution where buildings and other conveniences are already provided, two research professors and their assistants could be paid for where one only would be possible if building and service had to be provided. There are buildings and laboratories in London and elsewhere provided by beneficent founders without stipends for directors and assistants, and there are already a good many young graduates drawing terminable inadequate stipends in succession to one another from great foundations. The difficulty is to bring about the combination of adequate funds for the chief and for the graduated minor posts, and for a well-equipped laboratory. When that is done, as it sometimes, though rarely, is, the only further difficulty is how to choose a real man, an inspired, inspiring discoverer. There is only one way.

Real discoverers are extremely rare—great ones are recognized about once in fifty years in any one large branch of science. There may be others wandering about—undiscovered discoverers. The only people who can discover them are men like themselves. Hence, in German universities and all wisely managed institutions for the promotion of scientific discovery, they give the power of choosing new discoverers to those discoverers already belonging to the university or institution, and they take care that all the electors are vitally interested for the honour, credit, and pecuniary success of their university. These conditions can be arranged and brought into healthy action by care and understanding. But the whole fabric may go to pieces, and jobbery and jealousy prevail (as has sometimes happened in England) if care is not taken to identify the personal interests of the electors (brother professors) with the honest exercise of their capacity to choose a real discoverer to fill a vacancy when it occurs, or if an ignorant council of "superior persons" is allowed to interfere.

To find these great discoverers is, indeed, no light task. They have to be looked for by the State, firstly, in the primary schools; the net has to be drawn and the minor fishes allowed to escape, whilst the strong and promising are sent on to high schools. Then again, after further sifting, some are passed on to the special college, then a selection to the university, and at last one or two a year may be chosen as assistants to an established and inspiring discoverer. Seven, ten, or fifteen years later one out of all his fellows and predecessors is recognized as the incomparable teacher and discoverer—the inspirer of others, the one great man of half a century. He must be chosen by his colleagues, his fellow-workers, not by political wire-pullers nor by any variety of social "Bumble." He is given laboratories and assistants, and men come to consult him, to sit under him, work for him, from all parts of the world. Louis Pasteur was such a man. Huxley pointed out by what a vast public expenditure Pasteur was gradually sifted out from his fellows, and made professor in the Normal School of Paris. Of course, a good many inferior people got a share of the training provided, and did some unimportant things; but if we put them aside it is perfectly true (as a calculation of the expenses of the whole network of State-supported schools and colleges and bursaries through which he passed will show) that the capture or discovery of Pasteur cost the French nation about £25,000,000. He was worth it, not only to France, but to every other nationality—and more, too, more than can be measured by gold. His name, honoured throughout the world on account of the splendid discoveries associated with it, gave self-respect, courage, and healthy pride to France at a time when she had cruelly suffered. Ten years ago the most popular newspaper in France took a "plebiscite" to determine who, in the general estimation of the French people, was the greatest Frenchman of the nineteenth century—the century which included the first Napoleon, Victor Hugo, Gambetta. The vote was given by some millions, and resulted in a majority for Louis Pasteur. Would Englishmen have shown such discernment? Such a man is absolutely necessary as the head of any great institute which exists for the purpose of scientific discovery. Such men, smaller it may be, but of the same inspiring quality, are the only men fit to be university professors. It is because there are still such men at the Institut Pasteur that it remains a great seat of discovery. It is because they have not such men, and that there is no intelligent attempt to get them, that many wealthy institutions in our own country fail to produce scientific fruit.

INDEX

Printed by Morrison & Gibb Limited, Edinburgh