Part 19

In enumerating the needs of the various departments it is fitting that the older studies and their modern developments should be first passed in review, for, though in certain respects these studies are well equipped, and though the provision of what is necessary would not be so costly as in the case of science, yet, in the deficiency of income available for development, there is real danger that the humanities may be starved.

Theology is well endowed by the piety of former generations. Yet the present Bishop of Winchester, when Hulsean Professor of Divinity, pleaded for an increased stipend for the professors which would permit them to save enough to retire upon; and, in view of the small sum, £200 a year, which the University is able to pay to its pension fund, such an increase cannot be said to be unreasonable. In law, a new post for the teaching of jurisprudence, or of jurisprudence combined with Roman law, is the chief requirement. The teaching of Latin and Greek is largely and effectively supplemented by the provision made by the colleges, but the demand for a professorship instead of a readership in classical archæology cannot be called extravagant, while it is little short of scandalous that the University possesses no professor, and can make no permanent provision for the study of ancient philosophy.

The teaching of Oriental languages is perhaps more dependent than that of any other subject on the self-sacrificing generosity of the staff. Though but a nominal stipend and a nominal duty attach to his chair, the Lord Almoner’s professor of Arabic voluntarily undertakes a large share of the teaching. The payment of the Talmudic reader, depending mainly on the generosity of a private person, is guaranteed only during the tenure of the present reader. The cost of the colloquial teaching of spoken Arabic, Turkish, and Persian by native instructors is guaranteed, and sometimes in part provided, by the Sir Thomas Adams professor of Arabic. The professor of Chinese has the inadequate stipend of £200; and the professorship terminates with the tenure of the present holder. Apart from the necessity of providing teaching for practical students, the proper care of the Chinese library alone renders the permanence of the professorship a necessity. There is no professorship or readership of Japanese. The stipend of the present lecturer in Persian is inadequate. Egyptology is not provided for, although there is a fine collection of mortuary objects in the Fitzwilliam Museum; and Assyriology, although the professor of Assyriology at King’s College, London, lives in Cambridge, is wholly unrepresented. No provision is made for the teaching of the Iranian dialects. Altogether some £2,000 a year could well be spent in Oriental languages alone.

There is no chair of English literature in the University. The professorship of Anglo-Saxon is a recent endowment. By the exertions of the occupant of that chair a sum of £2,100 has been collected, which yields an endowment of £60 a year for an English lectureship. To this small stipend the University adds £50 a year. It is not surprising that the distinguished student who has so long occupied the post should at last have been attracted to London by a higher stipend.

French and German are represented by two readers, who in the last twenty years have taken a large share in the development of a sound and growing school. In the provision for the teaching of modern languages, Cambridge ought not to be behind the northern Universities; and it is most desirable that professorships should be established in at least French and German. The University is indebted to a private fund for a small endowment for the lectureship in Russian and other Sclavonic tongues. This lectureship should be made permanent; and lectureships should be established in Spanish and Italian.

As in the case of classics and mathematics, the University teaching in history is largely supplemented by the colleges; but the Regius professor pleads for an additional reader and two lecturers. A central building with professors’ rooms and lecture-rooms and accommodation for the professorial library is urgently required.

The newly-established school of economics and politics is in urgent need of three or four lectureships, to which definite duties in research should be attached, in order to extend the present range of economic study, and to bring it close to the great problems of modern industry. While in the Universities of Edinburgh, London, Manchester, Leeds, North and South Wales, and Montreal, political economy is taught by economists trained at Cambridge, their alma mater is starved of the means necessary to produce their successors.

The anthropological collections are, for want of space, in a chaotic state. The University is fortunate in possessing many ardent workers; and its collections are most valuable. The existing museum of archæology and ethnology is, however, quite inadequate for their display, or even for their storage; and a disused warehouse has been hired at Newnham to accommodate the further collections which generous donors continue to present. To such an extent has it been necessary to carry the economy practised in this department that the shelves of the warehouse have been made from old boxes. A site for a new museum has been provided by the University, and plans have been prepared; but without the help of extraneous benefactions it is impossible to build at present. An adequate building would cost perhaps £25,000. The removal of the museum to a new site would set free space greatly needed for other purposes. The Disney professor of archæology and the curator of the archæological museum plead also for the foundation of a chair, or at least a readership, for the comparative study of religions; and, in view of the relations of the Empire to every kind of cult, it is scarcely creditable that neither of the older Universities makes any provision for this study.

The present staff consists of the Disney professor of archæology, and a lecturer on ethnology with a salary of £50 a year. The only accommodation for the latter is a room in the basement of the medical school, where he takes classes in practical work. Physical anthropology is associated more directly with the department of human anatomy, and is represented by another lecturer at £50 a year. The collection of skulls brought together by Professor Macalister affords unrivalled material for demonstrations; and, as two recent volumes from the pen of Dr. Duckworth show, good use is made of the material. The University has recently recognized the importance of anthropology by adopting a scheme for granting degrees for research in this subject.

The growing importance of the architect’s profession, and the widespread recognition of the fact that the young architect must have a preliminary scientific training, point to the desirability of establishing a school of architecture at Cambridge, resting on the one hand on the engineering school, and on the other on the Slade professorship of fine arts, and the school of archæology. The school might be organized on lines similar to those of the medical school; and the young architect would pass his early years of professional study on thoroughly practical lines, in the midst of admirable examples of almost all the different styles.

In 1877 Cambridge led the way in that difficult science called sometimes physiological psychology, sometimes experimental psychology, and sometimes psychophysics. In that year the present professor of mental philosophy and logic, and Dr. Venn, made a vigorous effort to establish a psychophysical laboratory. They unfortunately failed; had they succeeded, Cambridge would have possessed the first laboratory of this kind in the world. In 1878 Wundt opened his laboratory at Leipzig; and there are now some seven psychophysical laboratories in Germany, two in Russia, ten in the United States, one in Copenhagen, one in Paris, one in Geneva, and one in Canada. It is not that psychophysics is not studied in Cambridge, for Dr. Rivers, the lecturer on the subject, and Dr. Myers, have formed a school there which is second to none in Great Britain; this school has recently supplied a reader to Oxford. But the work is done under most discouraging circumstances. The laboratory is at present established in a dilapidated cottage in Mill Lane and in an adjacent disused granary. Further and better provision for this growing subject is urgent; and the present lectureship should be converted into a readership. The interest which is taken in the subjects under the control of the Board of Moral Science is shown by the successful launching of the Journal of Psychology, the first number of which was published by the University Press in 1904. Lecture-rooms and a departmental library are wanted; and the establishment of a readership in pedagogy should not be long delayed.

In mathematics two new professorships are needed, one in pure mathematics and one in applied mathematics; two of the present lecturers should be made readers; and the salaries of all the lecturers should be raised to £100 a year. One pressing need is that for two lecture-rooms, with an adjacent library and a museum of mathematical models. Cambridge is perhaps the most renowned mathematical school in the world; yet its provision for the accommodation of the staff is far behind that of the chief American Universities. A munificent benefactor has recently left a sum of £5,000 for repairs, etc., to the Newall telescope; but there is no stipend forthcoming for Mr. Newall, who for sixteen years has discharged the duties of observer without remuneration. The Lowndean and Plumian professors pay the salary of a demonstrator.

The Cavendish laboratory, owing to the position it has for years taken in the promotion of physical research, is overcrowded with students and researchers. Lord Rayleigh has most generously given to the University the Nobel prize gained by him in 1904. Of this benefaction, £5,000 have been assigned as a contribution towards the desired new wing; but money will be required for maintenance; and the professor estimates that a sum of £7,500 is now wanted for instruments, machinery, and laboratory fittings. The professor of chemistry asks for more apparatus and higher stipends for his teachers. He draws attention to the need for a metallurgical laboratory, the provision of which, in view of the recent establishment of a diploma in mining engineering, is urgent. Mineralogy asks only for a trained attendant and £35 a year; but for meteorology there is no real provision.

The Sedgwick museum, in which the department of geology is now housed, has involved much expense in furnishing. Although the existing furniture was all retained, there is still a demand for more cabinets; and Professor Hughes would like to spend £2,800 on these alone, while a large sum should be set apart for maintenance, wages, and the increase of stipends. The demands of botany are not yet completely satisfied. A readership to deal with the newly recognized study of scientific forestry has recently been created.

In zoology, if we leave out of account the need for higher stipends for teachers and higher wages for attendants, which runs like a thread through all the departments, there are two chief requirements. The first is for a new or, at any rate, a greatly enlarged museum. It is doubtful if the existing site is large enough to allow an adequate increase to the present structure; and to build a new building on another site would probably cost £30,000; nevertheless, with the ever-increasing collections housed in rooms already overstocked, this expenditure must soon be faced.

A branch of experimental science dealing with the study of variation and heredity in plants and animals has recently arisen, and has already attained very considerable proportions in Cambridge. It seems, indeed, that we are entering on a period when such studies will absorb the energies of most of the younger biological students. Under Mr. Bateson some twelve researchers are already at work following out Mendel’s law in many varieties of plant and animal. The extreme importance of these studies, which, if they prove a key to heredity, will place in man’s hands an instrument as powerful as Watt’s application of steam, is shown by the fact that Mr. Biffen has already discovered that susceptibility to rust in wheat is Mendelian, and is thus a property which may be eliminated by breeding. For all these studies land is required, as well as a greenhouse, outbuildings, and a trained gardener. None of these is as yet attainable.

The recent discoveries of the protozoic origin of malaria, sleeping-sickness, and other human and many other animal diseases, has directed attention both to the protozoa, with their complicated life-histories, and to the insects which convey them from one creature to another. Both protozoa and insects are highly specialized groups of animals. The establishment, by the aid of the Quick bequest, of a chair of protozoology will do something to meet the necessities of the case, so far as the protozoa are concerned; but some provision for the study of the insects is still needed.

A chair of physiological chemistry is urgently wanted. The pressing problems of the day in physiology require a chemical solution. Remarkable strides have already been made in this subject; the interaction of the various tissues of the body by means of the blood, the functions of the ductless glands, the problems of immunity, are all being worked out upon a chemical basis. In this country there are but two professors of physiological chemistry, whereas in Germany there are eleven, in Austria eight, in France six. That Great Britain is lamentably behind in this branch of learning is even more markedly shown when we consider the output of original memoirs. In 1903 over 3,000 papers, written by some 2,500 workers, were published; to this total the United Kingdom contributed no more than seventy. Cambridge has produced many brilliant physiologists; but the school cannot afford the outlay for even a necessary piece of apparatus costing £10; and the demonstrators pay, out of their pittances, part of the wages of their attendants.

The new medical schools, opened by the King in March, 1904, are but a portion of the original plan; and, until the remaining laboratories can be erected (at a probable cost of about £12,000), the various departments must necessarily be cramped. Many more teachers in special subjects are wanted, and the need of a professorship, or at least a readership, in hygiene is pressing. A new lecture-room is wanted in the department of human anatomy, which at present shares a room with physiology. A considerable sum is also needed for instruments, fittings, attendants, and libraries.

The school of engineering needs provision in metallurgy, mining subjects, and naval architecture; of the latter, in the greatest shipbuilding country of the world, but two chairs--one at Glasgow, and one at Newcastle-on-Tyne--exist. New workshops and engine-rooms are also greatly needed. The present workshops date from 1878, and are far too small for the demands on them. The provision of a sum of money which can be expended by the professor on the encouragement of research is much needed.

The department of agriculture is fairly well staffed, but at present is obliged to carry on its indoor work in four rooms in the basement of the chemical laboratory. The amount of research carried on by the staff has fully justified them in establishing the Journal of Agricultural Science, which appeared for the first time in 1904. This is the only periodical in the country devoted entirely to scientific agriculture. A laboratory for agriculture is a most pressing necessity; a site is available, but at present there is not sufficient money for the building, which, including provision for maintenance, would cost £20,000. The Drapers’ Company has generously promised a conditional £5,000 towards this sum, and some £12,000 has been collected from other sources.

Besides numerous smaller needs, there are two of primary importance which have not yet been mentioned. The first is that for the provision of examination rooms. The University examinations are at present held in the Guildhall, the Corn Exchange, and other hired rooms, often badly lighted, badly heated, and badly ventilated, and in no case well adapted to the purpose of conducting examinations. The hiring and arranging of the rooms costs the University at least £450 a year.

The other great need is some adequate provision for that priceless national treasure, the University library. Mr. J. W. Clark has himself inaugurated an appeal on its behalf. The list of donors which he is already able to print is headed by His Majesty the King; and a sum of over £18,000 has already been collected. This sum includes a donation of £5,000 from the Goldsmiths’ Company, and £2,700 assigned by Lord Rayleigh from the Nobel prize; to the remainder, resident masters of arts have largely contributed. When it has been shown by their contributions how keenly the residents feel on the subject of the library, it is hoped that some generous measure of help may be forthcoming from hands more able to give it. The library is the mainspring of University activity; and its well-being and good organization are important to all departments alike. Every member of the Senate, and every other person entitled to use the library, have access to the shelves; and no serious student, whether a member of the University or not, is refused.

But, in its restricted area, the library cannot expand further; and the result is congestion and inevitable disorder. The furniture and fitting up of the rooms recently rendered available for the library will cost some £15,000. Towards this expenditure the Financial Board has been able to grant only £5,000, spread over three years. The cost of furnishing a reading and reference-room is estimated at from £800 to £1,000. Further, an increase of the staff is urgently needed. The library grows at the rate of about 11,000 books per annum; and there are considerable arrears of cataloguing to be overtaken. The magnificent gift of Lord Acton’s library, for which the University is indebted to Mr. Carnegie and Mr. John Morley, has involved considerable outlay. The number of volumes presented is about 59,000; the binding, cataloguing, printing of titles, and the provision of bookcases will cost about £8,000, to which the University has contributed £6,900. Gifts such as these are of priceless value to Cambridge; but they entail heavy expenditure. Additional assistants, moreover, are needed to look after them; and every new room added to the library increases the cost of maintenance. Altogether, it is estimated that a sum of £21,200 is required for present use; and that £3,800 a year is required for additions to the staff, the purchase and binding of books, and for the additional expense entailed by the Acton library. This annual income, if capitalized, represents a sum of £126,700.

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Modern education is a costly thing; and when, in 1904, the heads of departments in the University made an estimate of the outlay necessary to place their several provinces in a state of efficiency, their deliberate and responsible calculations showed that a sum of £270,000 was required for building and equipment, and an additional annual income of £38,000 for the increase of salaries on the very moderate scale suggested, and for maintenance; in all, say a capital sum of a million and a half. Even this estimate takes no account of the desirability of providing pensions for professors who have reached the age of seventy. As the published list of benefactions shows, Cambridge has reason to be grateful to her recent benefactors. But to raise an endowment comparable to that of £1,400,000 which the Johns Hopkins University received from private munificence seems in this country to be hardly within the bounds of possibility.

Had an appeal such as that issued by Cambridge been made in the United States, there is little doubt that it would have met with a prompt response. There is in Montreal a University, officered largely by Cambridge men, and equipped with a princely magnificence of which Cambridge dares not even dream. Dr. Ewing’s comment is pertinent. ‘It is good,’ said he, ‘to see the colonial daughter sitting down to so lavish a table; but is it well that the alma mater at home should be left looking wistfully at the crumbs?’ Nearer home, Mr. Carnegie has shown what a large-minded liberality can do for the Scottish Universities. A great benefactor who would free the University of Cambridge from a sordid struggle, in which every pound spent on development has to be laboriously begged, would earn an enduring fame in the annals of British education. It has been the earnest desire of the authors of this paper to show that the University is not unworthy of such generosity; that she has displayed great courage and great self-denial in facing modern conditions; and that her reputed wealth is a fiction, while her poverty is a grim fact.

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