CHAPTER XIV.

POSITION OF SCIENCE.

Science in England is not a profession: its cultivators are scarcely recognised even as a class. Our language itself contains no _single_ term by which their occupation can be expressed. We borrow a foreign word [_Savant_] from another country whose high ambition it is to advance science, and whose deeper policy, in accord with more generous feelings, gives to the intellectual labourer reward and honour, in return for services which crown the nation with imperishable renown, and ultimately enrich the human race.

The first question which presents itself to a government desirous of advancing science, is to consider what departments of knowledge it is important that it should reward. This is a point upon which much misunderstanding prevails, and with regard to which interested parties have studiously endeavoured to delude the public.

As the fund which can be applied to this purpose even by a generous nation, is moderate, the first limitation of its application ought naturally to be,—to confine it to those discoveries which are from their very nature not immediately capable of becoming a source of profit.

One of the most common errors, is to reward persons who have merely acquired an extensive knowledge of various departments of science, but who have neither extended its boundaries by new methods, nor added new principles to its theories.

§ An analogous mistake often occurs to wealthy and benevolent persons residing in the country, who, finding in the son of their village blacksmith or other artificer, some great aptitude for figures, immediately conclude that if properly trained and then sent to College, he will turn out a great mathematician. Now although in very rare instances such cases may have occurred, the general result is quite different. The lad thus selected, if as is usually the case he is somewhat above the average intellect, will under such favourable circumstances probably acquire a considerable knowledge of science, and become a very respectable member of society. But if the benevolent person who thus totally changed the position in life of this young man, had first made inquiries at our national schools, he would probably have found several out of every hundred scholars, capable under similar treatment of acquiring a still larger amount of that knowledge.

§ With the increasing extension of science the labour of some of its details becomes excessive, and those who are able to afford the expense, gladly employ computers to relieve them from the more irksome portions of their toil. The reduction of astronomical and meteorological observations are of this kind. When once the formulæ to be used are decided upon, and a skeleton form is ruled or printed and a system of checks is devised, the remaining work may be executed by persons of very moderate attainments. This may be extended to the computation of the orbits of planets, of comets, and of double stars, and such assistance may usually be had on very moderate terms. In more extensive operations, the liability to error from the want of sufficient checks, and the great tediousness and even uncertainty of the result must remain, until mechanism shall entirely relieve the mind from these difficulties.

§ Let us now consider what is the present situation of men of science in England.

The estimate which is formed of the social position of any class of society, depends mainly upon the answer to these two questions:—

What are the salaries of the highest offices to which the most successful may aspire?

What are the honorary distinctions which the most eminent can attain?

Offices of a strictly scientific nature are few, and their salaries are generally of small amount: amongst these there are—

A few of the professorships at our universities.

The Astronomer Royal.

The Astronomers of some of our Colonial Observatories.

The Master of Mechanics to the Queen.

The Conductor of the Nautical Almanac.

The Director of the Museum of Economical Geology and of the Geological Survey.

Various officers of the same institution.

Some of the officers in the Natural History department of the British Museum.

The most valuable of these, that of Astronomer Royal, receives about 1,300_l._ a-year, including a pension of 300_l._

Thus there is amongst this class one solitary prize of at the utmost 1,300_l._ a-year, and that is confined to one department of science.

Offices for which men of science are at least as fit as any other persons, are numerous, though they are very rarely attained by those who pursue it.

It may, perhaps, have been expected that the recent appointment of Sir John Herschel to the Mastership of the Mint, should have been noticed in the previous list. But until the motives which dictated it are known, I have no observation to make, except that it is gratifying to me to find that the great principle of the “claims of science,” for which I have all my life been contending, has been thus as it were, unconsciously admitted by the minister: and had the accident of birth placed me in his position, the appointment would have been the same, although the motives for it might have been different.

Let us now turn to the _honorary distinctions_ which await science. During the eleven years of the present reign, one solitary instance is to be found of a baronetcy given for science, and that too occurred only at a festival (the coronation) at which baronetages and peerages were showered upon those whose sole claim was founded on the mere support of party.

During the same interval, about half a dozen of those who cultivate science, have been knighted.

It appears then that the highest position a man of science can attain, and that but very rarely, is a baronetcy; that the highest salary is about 1,000_l._ a-year. When this is compared with the most successful prizes in the army, the navy, the church, or the bar, it shows at once the inferior position occupied by science.

Connected with the navy is an office which ought to be held by a person eminently uniting science with practical skill. The Surveyor-General of the Navy has to decide upon questions of the greatest difficulty. The mathematical theories and inquiries on which the various qualities of sailing vessels and steamers depend, are of the most complicated kind, and are not even yet sufficiently advanced to serve as secure and absolute guides. Yet without a knowledge of their present state, and a power of advancing those theories, it is hopeless to expect the greatest and most valuable additions to the science of naval architecture. This can only be accomplished by one who combines a great facility in applying such portions of them as admit of it, to the practical facts which experience is continually bringing to light.

The talent for commanding a fleet is by no means rare: the most successful in that line may attain fortune, the peerage, and a large pension. The talent for investigating the laws regulating the forms of ships, is of the very rarest order. Even if its possessor should happen to be of the naval profession, his greatest reward could only extend to knighthood, and a thousand a-year during the tenure of an office of great labour. Of course, naval men having the requisite talents, would never turn them into so unprofitable a direction: yet it would be difficult to say how many millions of money have been, and continue to be, uselessly expended for want of that knowledge.

Amongst those situations in the appointment of the government, there are many in which a knowledge of various branches of science is highly useful. A considerable number of these are filled by officers of engineers, artillery, and other corps of the army and of the navy. Thus those whose service is already paid for by the country, are excused from doing their ordinary duty, and are paid again for doing another and perhaps a more agreeable duty.

Under the delusive plea that _military_ and _civil_ engineering are the same science, military engineers have been placed in situations for which they were unfit, and civil engineers have been excluded, to the injury of that profession, and to the much greater damage of the country. The Ordnance Magnetical Observatories will furnish an example of the _economy_ which, it is pretended, results from such arrangements.

Some ten or twelve years ago, it was proposed by Humboldt that various governments should establish magnetical observatories at different points on the earth’s surface, so chosen that by the united information thus obtained, we might arrive at more accurate and correct ideas of the state of the earth’s magnetism. That plan has been pursued with great advantage to science. A magnetical observatory was built at Greenwich, and continuous observations were made which have been reduced and published annually under the direction of the Astronomer Royal. The expense[23] of the Magnetic and Meteoric Observatory, excluding that portion of the Astronomer Royal’s salary which may be considered due to his services in the direction of this department, but _including the whole of the making and recording the observations themselves_, is 720_l._ annually.

There are other magnetical observatories in several of our colonies in which observations are made. These observations appear to be sent for reduction to an establishment at Woolwich, under the superintendence of Colonel Sabine.

Now the first and most obvious course would have been to have employed an additional number of computers at Greenwich, who should use the same formulæ and methods of reduction. This would ensure perfect uniformity, and would apparently be the most economical plan.

The course that is actually pursued is to have a separate establishment at Woolwich, with an officer, and several non-commissioned officers on extra pay, so that the account stands thus:—[24]

£ s. d. One officer, extra pay 182 10 0 One non-commissioned officer, ditto 27 7 6 Three non-commissioned officers, ditto 68 8 9 Contingent, not exceeding 200 0 0 ------------ Apparent expense £478 6 3

But to this must be added—

The full pay of Lieut.-Colonel 300 0 5 His extra pay 273 15 0 Full pay of one officer, if a Captain 192 16 3 Ditto one non-commissioned ditto[25] 20 0 0 Ditto three ditto ditto 50 0 0 ------------- Real expense £1,314 17 11

In the estimate for civil service for 1850[26] the following items occur:—

£ s. d. Extra pay to Colonel Sabine, Royal Artillery, for services in connexion with the Magnetic and Meteorological Observations, for ten years, from 7th May, 1839, to 7th May, 1849, at 15s. a-day 2,739 15 0 Deduct 3s. 4d. per day granted him from 1st June, 1841, to 7th May, 1848, as compensation for loss of command pay 434 8 0 -------------- £2,305 7 0

This certainly requires an explanation. Here is an officer not doing the services of his profession, who it seems has been allowed a compensation for what he _might_ have received if he _had_ rendered those services: notwithstanding which, at the end of ten years, he claims and is allowed the above sum of £2,305 7_s._ for services the payment of which it would seem by this account was never contemplated during those ten years.

It is also to be remarked that Colonel Sabine does not reside at Woolwich, where the only effective portion of the work is carried on.

§ But to return to our argument: it is singular that even the principles on which science ought to be rewarded, are not entirely settled.

Should all equally great discoveries be rewarded in the same way, without regard to the different positions in society which the discoverers occupy? If this principle were admitted, the rewards must be very large, or there would be none for the higher classes of society.

Of all steps in the social scale, that which first elevates a man into the class of Gentlemen is by far the greatest. In this country, where the differences of rank are great, there is fortunately, until we approach royalty, no absolute line of demarcation between any classes, except the one alluded to; even the peerage to a private gentleman is not so great an advance.

It is without doubt very desirable that all classes should contribute to the intellectual advancement of the country. But unless different advantages are proposed to different classes, it is not possible to apply any general stimulus to all.

§ Those who maintain that science is its own reward, cannot have remarked the vicious circle in which they reason. The delight derived from discovery is indeed a high intellectual reward, but the force of this maxim is only known practically to those who have already advanced in the career of discovery: it can, therefore, never direct the inquirer into that line. All men are subject to the same feelings and passions. It is assuredly true that men of wealth and rank will be happier if they cultivate their faculties, and add to the amount of human knowledge: but they cannot be aware of this truth until they are considerably advanced, consequently it cannot have induced them to commence this cultivation.

§ But it is for the interest of those who are the consumers of knowledge, that all other minds should be induced to advance it: therefore it is our interest to place even before the highest classes, at the commencement of their career, motives for its pursuit. Having raised such expectations, justice requires us to fulfil them; nor can we regret that the advantages derived from the course into which we have invited them, should have proved beneficial to them beyond even the limits of our prediction.

It is of the very nature of knowledge that the recondite and apparently useless acquisition of to-day, becomes part of the popular food of a succeeding generation. Thus the nobleman who spends his wealth in constructing unrivalled instruments, and his nights in scrutinizing with them the remotest boundaries of space into which human vision has yet penetrated, is preparing a source of pleasure and happiness for the descendants of those very peasants whom his practical skill in engineering has raised by his own instructions above the ranks in which he originally found them.

§ Another question has been raised, but not yet answered, respecting those pensions which have been awarded for scientific discoveries. A certain definite limit has been fixed by practice, which has never yet been exceeded in pensions assigned to science. The sum of three hundred a-year, the maximum of reward to science, is almost the minimum of reward for other services.

The most important question is, Whether these pensions are given as the reward of scientific services rendered to the country, or as charity to enlightened and studious persons who happen to be poor? In the one case, they are an honour which a philosopher may be proud of receiving from his country: in the other, they are no more than a higher order of pauper relief, which an independent gentleman can scarcely condescend to accept.

Another important question, though of a different nature, also arises here. Are these pensions, thus small in amount, fit to be offered to those who, in order to arrive at their discoveries, have themselves in some cases spent out of their own private fortune, sums far larger than the fee simple of the rewards thus offered to them.

Is it just that the _same rewards_ should be given to persons filling well-endowed scientific offices, supplied with all the means of discovery which the most perfect art can produce, as to other philosophers, who, at the expense of their own personal comfort and perhaps of the interests of their family, have purchased the costly means by which they have succeeded in _equally_ improving their several departments of science?

For the honour and the advancement of science, it is necessary that these questions should be distinctly answered. It is to be hoped that some independent member of parliament will at last press them in a manner which no ministerial shuffling can evade.

[23] See App. to Rept. of Select Com. on Misc. Expenditure, p. 222.

[24] See p. 221 App. to Rept. on Misc. Expenditure, p. 848 (543) II.

[25] The pay of the non-commissioned officers has been assumed as somewhat less by ten per cent. than their extra pay.

[26] See p. 41, App. to Rept. on Misc. Expenditure, p. 848, (268) IV.