George Gore

“ But such an idea is only another illustration of the general ignorance of the subject, and it is only expressed by those who have never made a laborious and difficult research. Pure research is by far the most difficult of all scientific occupations, and this is another chief reason why discoverers are few, and why they will probably remain so.
To succeed in research, a man must set aside all human pride, and approach the subject with perfect humility; and this is not an easy task, men cannot so readily abandon preconceived and cherished notions. ”

“ The poverty of a man does not justify his taking the fruits of the labours of another man without paying for them. If also the patent fees were thus applied, the cost of research would then be paid for by all classes of the community, somewhat in proportion to the benefit derived, because the cost of patents in general ultimately falls upon the public at large, in the shape of an increased price put upon the commodity, in order to pay the cost of the patent, like the grower of wheat is paid by the consumers of bread, through the medium of the baker, the miller, and corn merchant. ”

“ That the practice of teaching is however of very great use in preparing the mind of a scientific man for research is quite certain, because it compels him to study all parts of his subject, and whilst doing so, many questions for investigation occur to his mind. Many of our most eminent discoverers have also been teachers. But teaching is not a necessary condition of success in research, nor even a necessary preparation for it ”

“ Most of these gentlemen have been obliged to abandon research at a period of life when their faculties were in the most perfect state for continuing it.
Where one young beginner in science meets with the fortunate circumstance of a helping hand, as Scheele did in Bergmann, and Faraday in Davy, many are crushed out. The want of encouragement to scientific discovery in this country is so very great that extremely few men are able to struggle through it, and this is one reason why we have had so few discoveries. ”

“ Inventors are usually poor, and but little able to pay taxes on patents at all; their pecuniary position in this country is not greatly better than that of discoverers; they are largely at the mercy of manufacturers and capitalists; and the injustice to which they are sometimes subjected is notorious and disgraceful. On the other hand, the fund already exists; inventors also receive an equivalent from investigators, discovery is the indispensable basis of nearly all invention; patented inventions are formed by means of the knowledge obtained by pure scientific research. ”

“ The time is near at hand when this nation will be compelled by the injurious consequences arising from its neglect of scientific research, to acquire a knowledge of the relations of science to national existence and welfare, and to adopt some means of encouraging discovery. The greatest difficulty, probably, which has to be overcome, is not so much how to obtain funds for the purpose, as how to employ them successfully, and especially how to prevent their getting into the hands of unsuitable persons. ”

“ New scientific knowledge is like a powerful light, it cannot be hidden. Discoveries are eminently national knowledge, and research should therefore be national employment.
Other persons suppose that investigators should be satisfied with the fame of their discoveries, and not require any payment; but this is a most unfair supposition, because no man can live without means, and every useful person deserves to be paid for his labour. ”

“ Original research will for a long time to come, be opposed by a large section of the non-scientific public:—by the numerous persons whose source of income depends upon the ignorance of their fellow-men:—by those who are deficient of faith in demonstrable truth, and fear that their most cherished beliefs are endangered by it:—and by many of those who are insufficiently acquainted with it to perceive its great value to mankind. ”

“ No system of aid however can place scientific investigation in a satisfactory position in this country, which does not include certain remuneration for time, money and labour expended; and no sound argument can be adduced why investigators should not be adequately recompenced. The genius alone of a discoverer should be rewarded by fame, and his time, labour, and expenditure, in accordance with his professional reputation, be repaid by money, as in all other intellectual occupations. ”

“ Aid to research, in Germany, has been chiefly been made by the State, by affording means to the Professors in the Universities; in America, more by munificence of wealthy individuals; and in this country, chiefly in the form of Government grants of money to investigators. The greatest difficulty to be surmounted in carrying out any of these schemes, is the very general ignorance in this country of the value and necessity of research; and this can only be overcome by scientific men themselves performing their duty of enlightening the public on the subject. ”

“ Discoveries are also generally much more valuable than inventions, because a single discovery (that of gutta percha for example) not unfrequently forms the basis of many inventions. Discoverers not unfrequently meet with new facts which they perceive might be applied to valuable technical uses, but they hesitate to patent them because the process of invention, taking out a patent, seeking a manufacturer to work it, and protecting their patent from piracy, would occupy a large portion of their time, and take them away from research. ”

“ By founding State Laboratories. One of the first duties of a Government is to protect its subjects in the enjoyment of their property; but as no law reserves to discoverers the fruits of their ability, it is clearly a duty of the State to protect them in other ways. It is believed to be a duty of the State to provide and pay for pure scientific research, for the following reasons:—because research is eminently national work; because the results of such labour are indispensable to national welfare and progress, and are of immense value to the nation, and especially to the Government ”

“ It has however been abundantly proved that nearly all the great scientific utilities of every-day life, had their origin in the pursuit, not of utilities, but of pure truth, and that immediate usefulness is neither the most successful nor the highest motive in scientific research, nor should research be limited by so narrow a condition. ”

“ Such men, although not infallible, are the least likely to "work wrongly," and much less likely to do so than amateurs. Many scientific investigators also of repute, object to give their services wholly to a wealthy nation, because they cannot afford to do so, and because it is only just that the nation should make them some pecuniary return for their skill and labour. The great evils in this country requiring new knowledge to remedy them [28] also prove that there are not "plenty of amateurs ready and willing to assist in research here," or that "the researches may be very well left to them." ”

“ Should the wealthy and governing classes however become sufficiently acquainted with the value of research, and of the essential and permanent dependence of their material prosperity upon it, there will then be some hope that they will be willing to contribute in a more direct manner their just share towards paying the expenses. There is, however, but little prospect of this whilst the influence of wealth so depresses the scientific education of those classes at the Universities. ”

“ Scientific discoverers have always been distinguished as a body of men intensely devoted to their labours, and willing to perform much work for small payment. Most of the great advances in science also in England, have been made not by "amateurs," but by men of great experience, such as Newton, Herschel, Priestley, Davy, Faraday, Graham, and many others. Endowment of research is not desired for wealthy amateurs, but for investigators of proved ability and small pecuniary means and who require assistance. ”

“ In some cases discoverers have devoted themselves to teaching, only after having attained high repute in research; in others they have not been teachers at all. Original research itself usually suggests plenty of new subjects of investigation, without the additional ones suggested by teaching.
In order that self improvement in a man of science might never stagnate, there should exist a continuous and complete series of steps of preferment, by which the merest beginners in scientific knowledge, might be enabled to attain to the highest scientific position ”

“ By the proposed plan however a student would become a teacher; the teacher develope into a professor; and a professor might employ for a period a portion of his time in research, and thus become qualified for entire devotion to original investigation and discovery.
After a scientific teacher has acquired a thorough knowledge of his subjects, and a high position in his profession, his occupation becomes to him a species of intellectual routine, in which he is continually going through the same courses of lectures and examinations over and over again, and his personal improvement stagnates. ”

“ The chief argument in favour of provincial colleges of research is, that it is a duty of wealthy persons to aid research, because they have derived, and are continually deriving great benefits from it, for which they make no payment. The ways in which some of those benefits have been derived have been already briefly stated. As the large manufacturers and capitalists are generally the persons who derive great pecuniary benefit from the progress of science, it might be reasonably urged that they should contribute freely towards its advancement. ”

“ Each professor should be allowed perfect freedom to choose his own special subjects of research in the sciences he had been accustomed to study, because each investigator is usually the best judge of what researches are the most likely to yield him important results. No discoverer of repute would be very likely to trespass on another man's sphere of research, because he would usually have an abundance of good subjects of his own ”

“ The time has arrived when this great evil should be made known and remedied, and men of science should press upon our Government, as a matter of justice to themselves, and necessary for the nation's welfare, that the accumulated fees from patents should be applied to the establishment of a Scientific department of the State, the erection of State laboratories, and the payment of discoverers for the national work of research. ”

“ As this natural order of dependence and development of the sciences is a great fact of nature, over which we have little or no control, and as a scheme for the simultaneous establishment of professorships of research in all the sciences, simple, complex, and concrete, would probably be too great an undertaking, the most proper course would be to commence with the simpler ones, such as those of mathematics, mechanics, physics, and chemistry, and perhaps biology. ”

“ There is also a real return received by the public for expenditure of money in research, in the free liberty to use all new knowledge developed everywhere by such labour, and although the money expended by a community upon particular researches or upon an individual investigator, does not directly produce an immediate return; practically an immediate and direct benefit is received by that community, because new scientific knowledge for the use of teachers and popular lecturers, and new inventions based upon it, of local value to that society, continually become public. ”

“ Moreover, progress in the developement of the national scientific intellect is not so much to be reckoned by the few great successes which have occurred in spite of all obstacles, but rather by the much more numerous ones which would have resulted from proper encouragement. The advocates of such an argument can have no idea of the heart-sickening feeling of long deferred hope experienced by the young beginner in science ”

“ An original research cannot be made without considerable industry, and the greatest opponent of industry, especially with young men, is the possession or expectation of wealth. According to college tutors at our old Universities, there is no large class of industrious students at those institutions. The greatest cause of the idleness of the students is parental neglect and the habits of wealthy society. Many parents allow their sons too much money, and over-look too readily their idleness and frivolity; the young men also know their parents are rich, and act accordingly. ”

“ Each of these remarks appears to be made upon the assumption that it is still a doubtful question whether persons qualified for research should be encouraged or not to abandon occupations they reluctantly follow, and for which they are less fitted, in order to become scientific discoverers. As it is a fact that the welfare of this country is suffering through deficiency of encouragement of research, it is certainly desirable to encourage, by every proper means, qualified persons to occupy themselves in such labour. ”

“ As it is largely the custom in this country to effect great objects by means of individual liberality and corporate enterprise, instead of trusting to State assistance, it is not improbable that when the great importance of scientific research and its claims to encouragement have become more generally known, that aid which has hitherto been with-held from it will be rendered by private generosity; and local institutions, wholly for the purpose of original scientific research will be established and supported by public-spirited wealthy persons. ”

“ Nearly the whole of the educational courses also at the Grammar schools and other educational institutions in this country, are formed upon the plan of sending all the superior scholars to our Universities, and thus the defective state of scientific training at the Universities operates through our whole scholastic system, and depresses the entire scientific instruction of the nation. ”