paid if a Royal Society medal were awarded to them. Some, like James Watt, had even to save their own inventions from the grasp of unscrupulous claimants, who wished to rob them of the fruits of their genius. The result of this policy of indifference was plain to all who could see. "In England, whole branches of Continental discovery are unstudied, and, indeed, almost unknown, even by name. It is in vain to conceal the melancholy truth. We are fast dropping behind. In mathematics we have long since drawn the rein, and given over a hopeless race. In chemistry the case is not much better." These were the words of Sir John Herschel in 1830, fifteen years after the great war was ended, and could no longer be pleaded as a reason for our isolation and ignorance. Sir Humphry Davy, President of the Royal Society, spoke in the same terms and about the same time. Babbage, the inventor of the wonderful calculating machine, expressed views equally strong. "In England, particularly with respect to the more difficult and abstract sciences, we are not merely much below other nations of equal rank, but below several even of inferior power, . . . and nothing but the full expression of public opinion can remove the evils that chill the enthusiasm, and cramp the energies of the science of England."[1] Seventy years have passed since then, and though it cannot be said that the ground lost has been all regained, a vast change for the better has taken place. Public opinion has been awakened to the danger that threatens the country from this neglect.
It was long in vain that learned men, loving their
- ↑ Quarterly Review, xliii. 305, "Reflexions on the Decline of Science in England, and on some of its Causes."
