THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 1910 THE STATE AND SCIENCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 984, 2 March 1910, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 1910 THE STATE AND SCIENCE.

Scientific discDvery is among the most important things in the world, but the number of scientific discoverers is extremely limited. They are as rare as radium. Sir R. Lankester points out that it ia the highest State wisdom to spend public money in endeavouring to discover these discoverers. The only people, he says, who can discover them are men like themselves. Hence in German Universities and all wisely-managed institutions for the promotion of scientific discovery, they give tne power of choosing new discoverers to those discoverers already belonging to' the university or institution, and they take care that all the electors are vitally interested for the honour, credit, and pecuniary success of their university. These conditions can be arranged and brought into healthy action by care and understanding. But the whole fabric may go to pieces, and jobbery and jealousy prevail, if care is not taken to identify the personal interests of the electors (brother profe.-sors) with the honest exercise of their capacity to choose a real discoverer to fill a vacancy when it occurs, or if an ignorant council of superior personsis allowed to interfere. To find these great discoverers is, in- j d er\ no light task. They have to be j lo.ked for by the State, firstly, in

the primary schools; the net has to be drawn and the minor fishes allowed to escape, whilst the strong and promising are sent on to high schools. Then, again, after further sifting, some are passed on to the special college, then a selection to the university, and at las>t one or two a year may be chosen as assistants to an established and inspiring discover- | er. Seven, ten or fifteen years later one out of all his fellows and predecessors is recognised as the incomparable teacher, the discoverer, and the inspirer of ethers, the one great man of half a century. He is given laboratories and assistants, and men come to conpult him, sit under him, work for him, from all parts of the world. Louis Pasteur was such a man. Huxley pointed out by what a vast public expenditure Pasteur was gradually sifted out from his fellows, and made professor in the Normal School of Paris. Of course, a good manyjnferior people got a share of the training provided, and did some unimportant things; but it we put them aside it is perfectly true (as a calculation of the expenses of the whole network of State-supported schools and colleges and bursaries through which he passed will show) that the capture or discovery of Pasteur cost the French nation'about £25,000,000. He was worth it, not only to France, but to every other nationality—and more, too, more than can be measured by gold. His name, honoured throughout the world on account of the splendid discoveries associated with it. gave self-respect, courage, and healthy pride to France at a time when she had cruelly suffered. Such a man is absolutely necessary as the head of any great institute" which exists for the purpose of scientific discovery. Such men, smaller it may be, but of the same inspiring quality, are the only men fit to be university professors. It is because there are stijl such men at the Institute Pasteur that it is still- a great seat of discovery. It is because they have not such men, and that there is no intelligent attempt to get them, that many wealthy institutions in England fail to produce scientific fruit.