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1887.
[The first half of 1887, like that of the preceding year, was chequeredby constant returns of ill-health.] "As one gets older," [he writes ina New Year's letter to Sir J. Donnelly, "hopes for oneself get moremoderate, and I shall be content if next year is no worse than thelast. Blessed are the poor in spirit!" [The good effects of the visitto Arolla had not outlasted the winter, and from the end of February hewas obliged to alternate between London and the Isle of Wight.
Nevertheless, he managed to attend to a good deal of business in theintervals between his periodic flights to the country, for he continuedto serve on the Royal Society Council, to do some of the examining workat South Kensington, and to fight for the establishment of adequateTechnical Education in England. He attended the Senate and variouscommittees of the London University and of the Marine BiologicalAssociation.
Several letters refer to the proposal—it was the Jubilee year—tocommemorate the occasion by the establishment of the ImperialInstitute. To this he gladly gave his support; not indeed to the merelysocial side; but in the opportunity of organising the practicalapplications of science to industry he saw the key to success in theindustrial war of the future. Seconding the resolution proposed by LordRothschild at the Mansion House meeting on January 12, he spoke of therelation of industry to science—the two great developments of thiscentury. Formerly practical men looked askance at science, "but withinthe last thirty years, more particularly," continues the report in"Nature" (volume 33 page 265) "that state of things had entirelychanged. There began in the first place a slight flirtation betweenscience and industry, and that flirtation had grown into an intimacy,he must almost say courtship, until those who watched the signs of thetimes saw that it was high time that the young people married and setup an establishment for themselves. This great scheme, from his pointof view, was the public and ceremonial marriage of science andindustry."
Proceeding to speak of the contrast between militarism andindustrialism, he asked whether, after all, modern industry was not warunder the forms of peace. The difference was the difference betweenmodern and ancient war, co