On the necessity for a permanent commission on state scientific questions : [a paper read at the Royal United Service Institution] / by A. Strange.

  • Strange, Alexander.
Date:
[1871]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the necessity for a permanent commission on state scientific questions : [a paper read at the Royal United Service Institution] / by A. Strange. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    be one permanent great council for advising and assisting the Govern- ment on all State scientific questions. This council should be purely- consultative, not executive. All Departments should equally be entitled to its assistance. The Council should not be expected to initiate questions, though it might occasionally see fit to propose certain inves- tigations to the Government, without whose sanction, however, they should not be undertaken. The Government should not be bound on all occasions of scientific difficulty, either to resort to, or be guided by, the opinion of the Council; but it would of course become in either case absolutely responsible for all consequences. The proceedings of such a body would embrace a vast field. Since there is no branch of science with which the Government does not at some time or other come in contact, every well defined branch of science should be fully repi'esented on the Council. There would require to be pure and mixed mathematicians, astronomers, surveyors, chemists, physicists, engineers, physiologists, physicians, surgeons, naturalists, geologists, meteorologists ; for some of these subjects two or more representatives of their different subdivisions would be needed. The naval and military services of all arms, and the commercial ele- ment should also be present. Probably not less than 50 members would be required for thorough efficiency. The Council of the Royal Society numbers 21 members, and this body takes little or no cognizance of naval and military questions, nor of those relating to public health, except indirectly, as illustrating philosophical views. The Council would conduct its business by means of working sub- committees, into which it would divide itself for specific purposes. The reports of such sub-committees should be submitted to the whole Conned for general discussion, and the responsibility for the advice ultimately tendered to the Government should rest on the Council as a whole, not on the section or sub-committee with which it might have originated. This mode of working would insure dispatch of business, special aptitude in the investigators, and large views derived from a great variety of attainments and habits of thought. Decisions thus matured could not fail to command public confidence. The duties that would devolve on this Council, stated broadly, would be— 1st. To advise the Government on all questions arising in the ordinary routine of administration, submitted to it by the various Departments. 2nd. To advise the Government on special questions, such as the founding of new scientific institutions, and the modification or abolition of old ones ; the sanctioning of scientific expeditions, and applications for grants for scientific purposes. 3rd. To receive, consider, and decide upon inventions tendered to Government for the use of the State. 4. To conduct or superintend the experiments necessary to enable it to perform the above duties. As to the first branch of its duties little need be said. The number and variety of questions involving scientific considerations entering into the current work of the different Departments are almost unlimited.