(5) SPECIAL RECOMMENDATIONS CONCERNING

SCIENCE.

I. SCIENCE AT OXFORD.

(i) The Science Departments and the Museum.

138. So far as Oxford is concerned, the question of financial assistance from the Government has been connected in a special manner with the question of the future of the scientific Depart

ments.

The original application for Parliamentary grants which led to the appointment of the present Commission was an appeal from the Heads of the scientific Departments, who on the 3rd of March, 1919, submitted to the Board of Education, through the Council of the University, a statement of their immediate needs. In this they asked for an annual grant of about £17,200 in respect of sixteen Departments and for a capital sum of £163,000 to meet the requirements of six of their Departments.

It was evidently realised by the Science teachers that they were unable to fulfil their duties without much greater financial support than could be expected from the University and the Colleges. Indeed, the proposed annual grant of £17,200 was only intended to provide for the work as it had been carried on before the war; the memorandum stated that further grants would be required as the Departments expanded, and that in all probability a larger proportion of undergraduates would study Science in future.

It had, in fact, been apparent for a long time that Oxford was unable to play her full part in scientific teaching and research without a very considerable increase of activity, and that this could not be secured without increase of funds. Many generous benefactions had been received, but nothing comparable with the large sums which scientific studies had attracted to many other Universities in recent times. The teachers were too few, and on the whole were inadequately paid. In several instances the accommodation was insufficient, and the equipment incomplete. The number of students and particularly of research students was in some subjects lamentably small, and in spite of brilliant exceptions the output of work was less than should be expected from a University possessing such great opportunities. Recommendations which we have made elsewhere in this report with regard to teaching generally will, we trust, meet many of the difficulties which led to the appeal from the scientific Departments. In our opinion a great opportunity has come for Oxford Science. With increased funds and determined action on the part of the Univer sity and Colleges, scientific teaching and research at Oxford can be placed in a much stronger position than they have occupied in the past.

139. It has been pointed out in paragraph 21 above that the recent history of Science in Oxford has been largely conditioned by the establishment of the University Museum.

The idea of a Museum to house the scattered collections and to serve as a centre of scientific teaching and study first found expression after the visit of the British Association in 1847, and was strongly pressed by Sir Henry Acland and others after the establishment of the Honour School of Natural Science in 1850. The University Commission of 1852 were invited to recommend the University to proceed with the plan lately brought forward for building a great Museum for all departments of physical science with proper laboratories, lecture-rooms and apparatus for lectures. The scheme was ultimately carried through, though with difficulty, by the energy of Sir Henry Acland and the influential support of many prominent representatives of other subjects, including ultimately such persons as Pusey, Wilberforce and Ruskin, and the Museum, erected on the four acres of land purchased from Merton College, was completed in 1860.

The original idea that the group of Departments surrounding the Museum should be controlled by the Museum Delegacy has for a long time past been abandoned. In fact the administration of the Clarendon Laboratory was transferred to the Professor as early as 1876. But the Statute providing that the Professors who teach in the Science Departments shall have no representation on the Delegacy, although they may attend its meetings, remains in force to the present day. Under the present Statute (1893) the Delegates are responsible for the distribution of space in the Central Court, the allocation of rooms to the Professors and Lecturers, the charge of unassigned collections, and the supervision of the fabric, apparatus, and collections; but their relations to the Departments are still under discussion, and there is such divergence of opinion on this subject that the Delegates have found themselves unable to make any recommendations to the Commission. We understand, however, that they feel that the Statute defining their duties has become obsolete, and that their constitution is open to serious objection.

The exhibited collections constitute in fact a group of departmental collections rather than an organised Museum. Subject to the allocation of exhibition space by the Delegates, the collections are practically under the control of the various Professors; it would probably not be possible now, even if it were desirable, to reorganise the Museum as an institution under its own management, independent of the teaching Departments. We think, however, that the University may find it necessary in the future, if there is considerable growth in the scientific Departments and collections, to transfer some of the collections to separate institutes allocated to different Sciences, each housing both the teaching collection and the laboratories. Meanwhile, unless and until this takes place, there is need for a Delegacy to supervise the exhibited collections and to be responsible for those which are not allocated to any particular Department. In our view, however, the Museum Professors should be directly represented upon this Delegacy.

140. Since 1860 the development of the Scientific Laboratories of the University has proceeded in buildings surrounding the original Museum Court, which contains the exhibited collections; and where the buildings have not been erected on the actual plot of ground constituting the Museum enclosure, sites have been acquired in the immediate neighbourhood, namely for Astronomy, Forestry, Agriculture and Engineering. The department of Botany has been the one exception, and has always been housed in the gardens opposite to Magdalen College.

In spite of the obvious advantages of concentration, this limitation of the Science Departments to a restricted area has led to difficulties of accommodation, owing to the absence of any comprehensive scheme of future development. Thus the enlargement of any Departments which are attached to the Museum Court, and possess collections exhibited in it, has frequently involved encroachment on the space allotted to other Departments and a consequent rearrangement of the Museum premises, while the building of new Departments in close proximity to the older Departments has interfered with schemes for the future extension of the latter. Not only are several of the Departments confined within buildings which are too small for them and yet are scarcely capable of adequate extension, but the Central Court itself cannot be enlarged to meet the natural growth of the collections which it contains. The Professors of Mathematics, who originally had rooms in the Museum, were obliged some years ago to seek Lecture Rooms in Colleges or in the Examination Schools, and they now have no rooms allotted to them officially for the giving of informal instruction.

On the whole, however, we consider that the policy of keeping the Science Departments near to each other should be continued in future, provided that sufficient space can be found for them. We have therefore much sympathy with the plea contained in a memorandum submitted to us by the heads of scientific Departments that a portion of ground in the University Parks, including the present Museum and the Observatory, and amounting in all to about 15 acres, should be reserved for scientific extensions and developments, and we think that the University should provide some such accommodation, and draw up a scheme for future. developments in connection with it, either in the Parks or on some other available site in close proximity to the Museum. Large schemes have been submitted to us for the extension of various Laboratories, and we think that much more accommodation is urgently required. We agree that many difficulties would reasonably be met if the old chemical Laboratories were removed to new quarters and the vacated space was used for the relief of some of the more essential " Museum Departments. But the details of the required extensions must be left to the decision of the University.

(ii) The College Laboratories.

141. The system of College Laboratories must be regarded as, in part at least, due to the past failure to supply at the Museum all the teaching required in Physics and Chemistry. There was

a considerable period, during the most critical time in the history of modern Science at Oxford, in which the Departments of Chemistry and Physics, the most fundamental of the new developments at the Museum, did not avail themselves of their opportunities for vigorous progress, and this probably caused a serious delay in the growth of the Science Schools. It is not surprising that the Colleges decided to make the necessary provision themselves.

College Laboratories have existed at Christ Church (originally intended for Anatomy) since 1755, and at Magdalen (built by Professor Daubeney chiefly for Chemistry) since 1848. These and the College Laboratories subsequently established gave in past years a great deal of the instruction received by students, particularly in Chemistry, and they gradually served the needs of a great many students belonging to other Colleges; but only recently has their work been so organised as so organised as to form a systematic scheme harmonising with, and supplying the deficiencies of, the University Laboratories. Jesus College Laboratory, opened in 1908, was specially designed for the provision of research facilities, chiefly in connection with Physical Chemistry.

There can be no doubt that the teaching of Chemistry in a number of small College Laboratories is less economical and in some respects less effective than centralised teaching in the larger Laboratories of the University. At Cambridge it has been found advisable gradually to abolish the College Laboratories altogether, and to concentrate the practical instruction entirely in the University Laboratories. At Oxford, however, the College Laboratories have hitherto been maintained, partly because they were able to supply the teaching and accommodation required at a time when the University Laboratories did not do so, but also because there has been a strong feeling in favour of retaining the Tutorial system in Science as in other subjects, and the Colleges have regarded it as their duty to supply such tuition themselves.

All Colleges, however, cannot have Laboratories, and as there is not much, if any, advantage in sending undergraduates to another College rather than to the University, it appears to us that under present conditions the need for ordinary Laboratory instruction in Colleges will gradually disappear, and that the College Laboratories which now exist will ultimately be used for other purposes. This would not prevent the Colleges from giving in College such tutorial instruction as they desire; but it appears to us that all the practical instruction in Chemistry and Physics should, as in other subjects, be supplied in large and well-organised Laboratories belonging to the University. The College Laboratories will still be of great assistance in temporary emergencies. Such subjects, for example, Spectroscopy, Meteorology, and Experimental Psychology might in the past have been adopted for a time by Colleges during

as

their initial stages if their Laboratories had been available for new developments. Or again, these Laboratories, if devoted wholly to advanced work and research, might have played, and may yet play, a very useful part in University organisation.

The Board of the Faculty of Natural Science is strongly in favour of abandoning practical work in College Laboratories. "While College Laboratories," they say, "have given help of the greatest possible value in the past, they are inadequate both in size and equipment for present needs; and the consequent subdivision does not make for efficiency. The Board is of opinion. that accommodation for the whole of this teaching should be provided in a single University Laboratory (or perhaps two). Such centralisation would add to efficiency. The Board fully realises that the expense of such a plan would be initially very great, but it sees no other practicable alternative."

II. SCIENCE AT CAMBRIDGE.

142. During the last century the Science Schools at Cambridge have acquired a position which it is no exaggeration to say is unique in the history of Science. They have been centres of fundamental researches in almost all branches of Science, as well as training grounds for teachers who have become eminent in their subject and have filled important appointments in many of the Universities of the Empire. The activities of these Schools. show no sign of slackening, and the task before the University is to maintain the present position rather than to introduce reforms, except such as are necessitated by the changing conditions of the time.

In a memorandum, dated 24th February, 1921, which is printed in Appendix 18, the Vice-Chancellor of the University, with the approval of the Council, estimates that an additional annual sum of not less than £14,300 is required for the scientific departments, excluding Medicine; and the additional estimate for Medicine is £7,000 a year, including £2,100 for Human Anatomy.

In addition, large sums are still needed for building purposes, as stated in the supplementary memorandum from the ViceChancellor which is printed in Appendix 18.

Our attention has been drawn to the importance of creating within the Empire a central institution for training and research in the Science of Surveying, Hydrography and Geodesy. The need for such a step has been urged by competent authorities, and the establishment of the proposed institution is favoured by the Hydrographic Department of the Admiralty and by the War Office. An institution of this kind. would not only supply the needs of the Empire, but would probably soon be accepted as an international centre for the standardisation of instruments used in Geodesy and in other branches of Geophysics. We have reason to believe that