Hales.  Examining in the Little-Go viva voce, he asked a candidate, with reference to some line in a Greek play, what passage in Shakespeare it recalled to him, and received the answer “Please, sir, I am a mathematical man.”  Some, no doubt, would rather ignore gravitation.  When, for example, one hears, as I did not long since, several scientific students own in perfect sincerity that they could not recall anything about Ananias and Sapphira and another, more enlightened, say that he was sure Ananias was a name for a liar though he could not tell why, one is driven to admit that ignorance of this special but not uncommon kind does imply more than inability to remember an old legend.  We may be reluctant to confess the fact, but though most scientific men have some recreation, often even artistic in nature, we have with rare exceptions withdrawn from the world in which letters, history and the arts have immediate value, and simple allusions to these topics find us wanting.  Of the two kinds of disability which is the more grave?  Truly gross ignorance of science darkens more of a man’s mental horizon, and in its possible bearing on the destinies of a race is far more dangerous than even total blindness to the course of human history and endeavour; and yet it is difficult to question the popular verdict that to know nothing of gravitation though ridiculous is venial, while to know nothing of Ananias is an offence which can never be forgiven.

That is the real difficulty.  The people of this country have definitely preferred the unscientific type, holding the other virtually in contempt.  Their choice may be right or wrong, but that it is reversible seems unlikely.  Such revolutions in public opinion are rare events.  Democracy moreover inevitably worships and is swayed by the spoken word.  As inevitably, the range and purposes of science daily more and more transcend the comprehension—­even the educated comprehension—­of the vulgar, who will of course elevate the nimble and versatile, speaking a familiar language, above dull and inarticulate natural philosophers.

In these discussions there is a disposition to forget how very largely natural science is already included in the educational curriculum both at schools and universities.  Schools subsidised by the Board of Education are obliged to provide science-teaching.  The public schools have equipment, in some cases a superb equipment, for teaching at least physics and chemistry.  At the newer universities there are great and vigorous schools of science.  Of the old universities Cambridge stands out as a chief centre of scientific activity.  In several branches of science Cambridge is without question pre-eminent.  The endowments both of the university and the colleges are freely used for the advancement of the sciences.  Not only in these material ways are scientific studies in no sense neglected, but the position of the sciences is recognised and even envied by those who follow other kinds of learning.  The scientific schools of Cambridge form perhaps the dominant force among the resident body of the university, and except by virtue of some great increase in the endowments, it would be impossible to extend further the scientific side of Cambridge and still maintain other forms of intellectual activity in such proportion as to preserve that healthy co-ordination which is the life of a great university.