The national importance of scientific research / by George Gore.

  • George Gore
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The national importance of scientific research / by George Gore. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    It is reasonable to suppose that Universities should be fountains of new theoretical scientific knowledge, as well as be the disseminators of it, and that they (especially the old ones with their ricli endowments) would be certain to promote scientific research, as being esi^ecially a part of their functions; but such is not the case. Our Universities have not estab- lished any professorships of original research; they make no payment for such labour, nor reimburse any expenditure incurred in such occupation, and afibrd but little facility for the prosecution of pure scientific inquiry. Further, they discourage scientific discovery by giving the greatest emol- uments, and the highest honours in science they have to bestow, to young men who have never made a single original research, or discovered a new fact in science. The money paid iir the form of comparatively sinecure fellowships, or retiring pensions to young men in Oxford alone, “now amounts to about eighty or ninety thousand pounds a-year.” It may be objected, that young men are not capable of doing original re- search, but as they do it in German Universities, they can also do it in England if they are properly disciplined, and are not decoyed from industry by the possession or expectation of wealth. A man who has never made a scientific research is not the most worthy recipient of the highest scientific honour, and in Germany it would not be given to him; he is not properly disciplined in the detection of error or the discernment of truth in matters of science; he is deficient in accuracy of scientific judgment, and in the true spirit of scientific inquiry. As the subject of this paper is scientific research, it is unnecessary to speak of what has been done during the last few years at our old Univer- sities and great public schools, in the erection of laboratories, and in other ways for the promotion of science, as it has been for the purposes of instruction, anti not of original research. No amount of ordinary instruc- tion in science will remedy the evils caused by want of original inquiry, because such instruction does not produce new knowledge, but only disseminates that already possessed. That discoverers are not treated by us as we treat other valuable mem- bers of the community is quite clear; either a physician, a judge, divine, lawyer, or railway superintendent of high ability, obtains from one to many thousand pounds a-year, but a discoverer in pure physics or chemis- try is, in scarcely any case, paid anything for his labour. The discoverer, Faraday, received for his scientific lectures oidy 200Z. a-year and apart- ments, 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/. a-year from Government. A general of our army receives 2000/. and a Field Marshal, 4400/. a-year (see “Whitaker’s Almanack,” 1873, pp. 121 and 138). A head master of either of the great public schools obtains from 3000/. 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 living.s, a palatial residence, and a seat in the House of Peers. A Pishop of London has 10,000/., the patronage of 98 livings, a palace, and a seat in the
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