Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne/Appendix 1

by John Ruskin

 

APPENDICES.

APPENDIX I.

Page 20.—Expenditure on Science and Art.

The following is the passage referred to. The fact it relates is so curious, and so illustrative of our national interest in science, that I do not apologise for the repetition:—

"Two years ago there was a collection of the fossils of Solenhofen to be sold in Bavaria; the best in existence, containing many specimens unique for perfectness, and one, unique as an example of a species (a whole kingdom of unknown living creatures being announced by that fossil). This collection, of which the mere market worth, among private buyers, would probably have been some thousand or twelve hundred pounds, was offered to the English nation for seven hundred: but we would not give seven hundred, and the whole series would have been in the Munich museum at this moment, if Professor Owen^[1] had not, with loss of his own time, and patient tormenting of the British public in the person of its representatives, got leave to give four hundred pounds at once, and himself become answerable for the other three!—which the said public will doubtless pay him eventually, but sulkily, and caring nothing about the matter all the while; only always ready to cackle if any credit comes of it. Consider, I beg of you, arithmetically, what this fact means. Your annual expenditure for public purposes (a third of it for military apparatus) is at least fifty millions. Now seven hundred pounds is to fifty million pounds, roughly, as seven pence to two thousand pounds. Suppose, then, a gentleman of unknown income, but whose wealth was to be conjectured from the fact that he spent two thousand a year on his park walls and footmen only, professes himself fond of science; and that one of his servants comes eagerly to tell him that an unique collection of fossils, giving clue to a new era of creation, is to be had for the sum of seven-pence sterling; and that the gentleman who is fond of science, and spends two thousand a year on his park, answers, after keeping his servant waiting several months, 'Well, I'll give you four-pence for them, if you will be answerable for the extra threepence yourself till next year.'"

1. I originally stated this fact without Professor Owen's permission; which, of course, he could not with propriety have granted, had I asked it; but I considered it so important that the public should be aware of the fact, that I did what seemed to me right, though rude.