Abstract
THE duty of the Government with respect to Science is one of the questions of the day. No question of equal importance has perhaps been more carelessly considered and more heedlessly postponed than this. And now that a hearing has been obtained for it, neither the governing class nor the masses are qualified to discuss it intelligently. The governing class, because it is for the most part composed of men in whose education, as even the highest education was conducted thirty to fifty years ago, science occupied an insignificant place; and the masses, because they may be taken to be virtually destitute of scientific knowledge. Those who wield, and those who confer, the powers of government being alike incapable of dealing with this question, it devolves on another section of the community to urge its claims to attention.
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STRANGE, A. On the Necessity for a Permanent Commission on State Scientific Questions * . Nature 4, 130–133 (1871). https://doi.org/10.1038/004130a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/004130a0