1848.

The Learned Societies.

CHAPTER V.

THE ATHENÆUM, 1848.

DURING the year 1848 considerable space was given to letters from Fellows of the Royal and other societies, consequent upon the changes about to be made in the constitution of the Royal Society, many of the Fellows being in favour of the suggestions made by the Athenæum in two articles which had appeared as far back as the 11th and 18th of April, 1846, ‘On the Literary and Learned Societies.' There was at that time much dissatisfaction as to their working and progress, or rather non-progress. A great number of societies had of late years sprung into existence, all of which had started with "splendid promises." The first article stated: "It appears to us that the vast majority of them do nothing-are actually stumblingblocks in the way of enterprise and exertion; that the whole income of more than one-half of them is expended in working the mere machinery, salaries, and so forth, while the object for which they were established is entirely lost sight of. Some three years since, for example, we drew

Society of

Literature.

attention to the proceedings of the Royal Society The Royal of Literature......It was shown, from the published accounts, that, in the twentieth year of its existence, the Society had not expended one single shilling in furtherance of those objects for which it was established." The article continued: "There are half a dozen other Societies to which we might refer by way of further illustration." Rent and salaries, and other expenses of the establishment, had been allowed to go on increasing, until they had swallowed up all, and more than all, the annual income.

that the

societies

one great

The remedy proposed by the Athenæum in the Proposal second article was that the societies should unite and form one great institute, sustaining should form and illustrating each other. "The several institute. branches of the same science we would gather into families, assemble under a common roof, and have waited on by the same servants," thus leaving a large reserve fund available for the special objects of each society. "The Archæological Institute and the Archæological Association should fraternize, and the Antiquaries take them home-the Geological, with apartments found it by the government, should take the Geographical under its wing:-the Society of Arts, with one of the noblest mansions in London, should shelter the Civil Engineers, the Architects, &c.,-so intimately connected in genius and

so widely separated by the fact:-the Linnean should maintain the Zoological, Botanical, Microscopical, Ornithological, Entomological, and all others that now do its work......One or two large halls for general meetings would serve the common purposes of all; and a separate committeeroom suffice for the private business of each. The Societies, too, might have each its own library, or its separate compartment in one One general general library; and in this department especially library. the value of a general organization is very conspicuous, in the great saving which might be effected by retrenching repetitions...... The sciences, and the various branches of the same science, include so much of knowledge that is common to all, and so illustrate each other by what is different, that corporate science has to spend her funds many times over in providing the same books for the various members of her scattered family. In the arrangement proposed, the special library of each body is but a department of a great general collection-under one roof-admirably classed by the very conditions of the case-ready for easy and instant reference -where each supplies to all and all to each the complement and entirety of scientific lore. Each body has, in fact, a general library at the mere cost of its own special one :-the saving of expense and the acquisition of strength seem

to us so striking as to need no enforcement beyond the mere proposition......There is, of course, nothing to prevent learned Societies from entering into the combination. The greater the multiplication of bodies-which are figures on the credit side of an account-the larger the balance to the gain of science. By means of that gain, the Societies less competently endowed will be able to effect the objects for which now they strive in vain; while the richer Institutions will have an increasing fund for the purposes which they have at heart, and a great accession of power in the learned and scientific atmosphere by which they will be surrounded." This idea was partially realized in 1857, when Burlington House became the home of the Royal, Linnean, and Chemical societies; and still further in 1873, when the Antiquaries, Royal Astronomical, and Geological societies also removed there.

The Athenæum for June 17th, 1848, contains an account of the meeting of the Royal Society, which had taken place on the 9th. At this meeting the Marquis of Northampton retired from the presidency, and the new statutes relating to the election of Fellows were introduced. These regulations, as is well known, restricted the number of new Fellows to be annually elected to fifteen; ten pounds

The Royal

:

new rules.

elected President.

was to be paid on admission, and four pounds annually, or a composition of sixty pounds.*

The object of these rules was to drive out the merely aristocratic element, and to restrict the fellowship to men really connected with, or who had rendered some service to, science, so that the letters F.R.S. should have a scientific meaning. The Athenæum had long contended that the head of a great scientific body should be a leading scientific authority, and that the President of the Society should be the foremost scientific mind, and it suggested that the new President should be Sir John Herschel; but,

Earl of Rosse as it had predicted, the Earl of Rosse was chosen as the new President, "a choice which will combine the aristocratic element, seemingly so dear to the members of the Royal Society, with the acknowledgment of a claim for service done to science, which is more befitting the theory of their character." The Royal Society seems at last to have come round to the view of the Athenæum "that science has nothing to do with mere heraldic stars," for Lord Wrottesley,

* The result of these rules was to reduce the number of Fellows from 839 in 1847 to 626 in 1866, to 567 in 1875, and to 552 in 1877. In October, 1885, there were 524 Fellows, including the five Royal and the forty-nine Foreign members.