Page:Reflections on the decline of science in England - Babbage - 1830.pdf/220



Amongst the various proposals for encouraging science, the institution of an order of merit has been suggested. It is somewhat singular, that whilst in most of the other kingdoms of Europe, such orders exist for the purpose of rewarding, by honorary distinctions, the improvers of the arts of life, or successful discoverers in science, nothing of the kind has been established in England.

Our orders of knighthood are favourable only to military distinction. It has been urged, as an argument for such institutions, that they are a cheap mode of rewarding science, whilst, on the