Page:Reflections on the decline of science in England - Babbage - 1830.pdf/58

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INDUCEMENTS TO INDIVIDUALS

time, I performed the same operation on his list, against some names of which I was obliged to place a zero. The result of the comparison was an average of nearly 1200l. per annum for the six French savans whom I had named. Of the average amount of the sums received by the English, I only remember that it was very much smaller. When we consider what a command over the necessaries and luxuries of life 1200l. will give in France, it is underrating it to say it is equal to 2000l. in this country.

Let us now look at the prospects of a young man at his entrance into life, who, impelled by an almost irresistible desire to devote himself to the abstruser sciences, or who, confident in the energy of youthful power, feels that the career of science is that in which his mental faculties are most fitted to achieve the reputation for which he pants. What are his prospects? Can even the glowing pencil of enthusiasm add colour to the blank before him? There are no situations in the state; there is no position in society to which hope can point, to cheer him in his laborious path. If, indeed, he belong to one of our universities, there are some few chairs in his own Alma Mater to which he may