LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
A DRAFT SCHEME FOR ENDOWING RESEARCH.
[TO TEN EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
effering for your consideration a plan by which, in the words of my former letter, a career may be opened to the student at the outset of life, which shall compete financially with the so- called practical professions, &c., I would premise two things :- (1.) I do not delude myself into supposing that this or any other scheme can create the capacity for adding to human knowledge, .as some critics have, rather foolishly, as I think, charged me with doing. Scientific capacity, whether in letters or in physics, exists sporadically among the members of every civilised society, and is the result of conditions at present but imperfectly known, but which Mr. Galton is trying to find out. We are scarcely in a position to say yet that endowment is one of those conditions, but what endowment can do is this,—it can prevent the waste of that capacity where it does happen to exist, by being diverted into those various practical channels of activity in which men without private means are accustomed to get a living. (2.) The scheme of endowment here proposed is probably only one out of many which may be devised, if people will really attend to the subject, and is open, doubtless, to a number of objections in detail which have not occurred to me. But I should be grateful to you or to any of your correspondents who will point out clearly what those objections are, in order that we may see together whether or no they can by any means be met, or whether, as often happens to the draft of a Bill in Parliament, the objections may themselves suggest such a remodelling of the whole scheme as shall make it, at least in the long-run, moderately practicable. Given, then, a number of young men who are receiving a liberal education, under the guidance of competent professors, and within the limits of a sufficiently elastic and varied curricu- lum. A considerable number of these will probably waste their time, or from different causes, health, stupidity, distractions of any kind, never attain anything like proficiency in their studies. We are not concerned with these. The remainder will fall into two classes, perfectly distinguishable by a teacher of ordinary ex- perience, of those who shine because they have naturally agile and vigorous minds, who succeed in study because they would succeed in anything else,—and of those who have a particular aptitude for study, and for a particular kind of study.
In this latter group, consisting of men endowed with different varieties of a special faculty, we thus arrive, by a method of ex- clusion, at the raw material,—the first draft, so to speak, of the scientific class of the next generation. Under our present arrange- ments, the members of both these classes alike are drafted into the practical professions—educational, legal, medical, civil, &c.— by which money may be made. As life goes on, the distinction between the two kinds of men becomes obliterated, and society suffers a double loss. First, it loses the additions to knowledge which the members of this latter class, or some of them, might have made ; and it loses, secondly, by having a portion of its routine business performed by men whose temperament is studi- ous and inventive, rather than practical. This happens because we have no career to offer to the savant at the outset. But if we had such a career to offer, what would happen is this :-
The man who, at the age of twenty, say, felt within himself, or thought he felt within himself, the scientific impulse, would go to the Professor under whom he had chiefly studied (I am speaking here from book, because I know cases in which such advice has been asked and followed), and would say, "Now, you have seen my work for a couple of years, and you know- pretty well what I can do ; do you think I shall make anything of a scientific career, or shall I go into a profession?" The recom- mendation of a Professor who knows his pupils and possesses their confidence, being given and followed (I speak, as I say, from actual instances within my own knowledge), will then form a further stage in the "sifting process," and out of the class of promising students with apparently special capacities, who desire to try the career of research, we shall get a still smaller group of men, whom an experienced teacher recommends to try it.
Can the Professor tell without a formal examination ? I think he can, for this reason. Because two or three years' experience of the quality of a man's work, under a variety of conditions, is better than three days' experience of the same work done under pressure. But for the satisfaction of the public, whose money is to be spent, by all means let us have an examination ; only not a competitive examination. For we want• to know whether the applicant is adequately acquainted with fact, and with the pre- sent state of inquiry, as well as adequately trained in scientific method, before we trust him to make investigations himself for which we are to pay. We do not want to know whether and to what extent (if I may be pardoned the expression) he has been induced by the prospect of a glittering prize to allow himself to be fatted for the market. But the simple Examination which reveals the candidate under pressure, and the Professor's opinion of him independently of the examination, must be weighed together by the Board of Electors who have to grant the endow- ment for Research.
As to the composition of this Board, I have not space to speak, beyond saying that it should always contain external and inde- pendent elements capable of checking the recommendation of the local Professor, and some men at least of acknowledged eminence as discoverers.
Now, as to the nature of the grant to be made. In annual amount it should be equal to, but not greater than, the average income which the candidate would make if he went into practical life. Otherwise, if a premium be put on research, which shall make it monetarily more desirable than other occupations, we shall be embarrassed by an "ugly rush." Let us say, enough to live upon, to begin with, perhaps not enough to marry upcn. This, however, is a detail, and I shall have presently to return to the question of amount.
But the essential point about the grant of endowment for research is, in my opinion, that it should be made for a very limited time, and for the performance of a specific piece of re- search, to be chosen of course by the candidate, subject to the approval of the Board. This will ensure its being a real, and not a fanciful or fruitless investigation, and its being within the lines along which a particular science is advancing. At the same time, it should be something distinctly modest in its extent, which will not take more than a year or a couple of years to get done. And the recipient-of the grant should distinctly understand that he has vested no right to have a similar grant for another research when this is over. He is simply paid handsomely for doing a particular job ; nothing more. It is easy at this point to think of a number of means whereby he may be made to put forth his whole strength upon this first research. He may do it under the eye of the Professor, or, what is more satisfactory, the research may form a part of a larger investigation in which some discoverer of eminence is engaged. In this way, he is at once made a citizen of the Republic of Science, and a healthy emulation will spring up in him by in- tercourse with those who are engaged on other parts of the same investigation. This is the plan by which the great historians and philologists of Germany bring on their picked pupils to become investigators at first hand, and ultimately on their own account ; but the most perfectly organised institution in the world for this kind of joint work, is the renowned physiological laboratory pre- sided over by Professor Ludwig at Leipzig.
Let us now suppose the term of the grant nearly expired, and the first research done. It should then be presented for accept- ance in the form of a paper to the Royal Society, or to one of the other learned Societies of London. It is either accepted or re- jected. If rejected, it is clear that the author has mistaken his vocation, and that both the Professor and the Board have made a blunder. But it is a blunder, both in reference to the community and in reference to the person more immediately concerned, of the very smallest practical consequence. A few hundred pounds have been spent in trying an experiment ; a further grant, if the candidate desires it, which is improbable, will be refused ; and he is not too old to enter with success upon some other walk of life. If, on the other hand, the learned Society accepts his research as a real contribution to knowledge, we shall let him choose another problem of larger dimensions, occupying a longer time, and with an increase in the annual payment, but in all other respects upon the same terms.
This precarious and terminable, as opposed to permanent endow- ment, such as we have in a Fellowship, should go on, with slight increase in the annual amount of each successive grant, for ten or twelve years,—i.e., until the scientific habit of mind has been tho- roughly formed in the recipient, and he has arrived at an age at which the choice of another profession is practically closed to him. He would, according to the hypothesis, have done by this time a good number of thoroughly real researches, and I think that then we could safely give him an endowment for life, the amount of which should be equal to the income of a barrister, or a medical man in fairly good practice, of a clerk who had been a dozen years in a public office, or of a junior partner in an average business,— say, 1800 or £1,000 a year. And if he at any time of his life makes a great discovery, let him be rewarded as Sir Garnet Wolseley has been rewarded for his conduct of the Ashantee campaign,—by an additional annuity on an equally liberal scale. In this way, the profession of Science could, I think, be made to compete on equal terms with the practical professions ; and mark that during the period of probation, the endowment, although precarious and terminable, is really continuous, and not only continuous, but increasing in value, just as the income derived from a practical profession would have been.
Whether or no I have really performed the promise of my last letter, whether or no this scheme is capable of being made at least the basis of modifications' which may issue in something practical, I must leave others to judge.
Lastly, the learned and scientific Societies should be endowed to an extent which would enable them to carry on their business and to print their transactions, because it is a well-known fact that, in the case of some of them, it is found necessary, from sheer want of funds, to admit to membership a multitude of persons who have no pretension to the character of savans. I believe that, in perhaps the majority of cases, the council of an waen- dowed society might be trusted, for competence, to perform the part, which in our scheme we have assigned to them, of accepting or rejecting the researches which we have supposed our young scientific men to make ; but if the society is dependent upon its subscriptions, it is obvious that the introduction of incompetent persons upon the council is within the bounds of possibility, 'whereas, in the case of a learned body like the Royal Society, such a contingency and its consequences are scarcely conceivable. Apologising for so long a letter, I am, Sir, &c., C. E. APPLET0N.
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