io6 Associatioris and Societies 



manufacturer labelled " chemlst " vvithout any qualification at all. 

 As a very general rule no intimation is given to the manufacturer 

 that his prospective employee is little more than a senior Student, 

 and, in the absence of any statement to the contrary, there is some 

 justification for regarding him as thoroughly competent not only 

 to carry out the routine work of the factory, but also to undertake 

 industrial research, to cheapen production, and to effect improve- 

 ments in the manufacuring processes concerned. At the end of the 

 year, in many cases, nothing very definite had resulted, no addi- 

 tional profit had been made; and there is no obvious improvement 

 in the factory working; and the manufacturer is very apt to give 

 emphatic expression to his disappointment, and to inveigh against 

 science in general and chemistry in particular. 



I need scarcely say that I do not overlook the very numerous 

 cases in which young chemists fresh from our College laboratories 

 have entered factories, and have most thoroughly justified them- 

 selves in every possible way, nor do I desire to exaggerate in the 

 slightest degree the extent of the difficulty to which I have referred. 

 I have merely called attention to a State of affairs which does, un- 

 happily, exist, and which, owing to its unfortunate consequences, is 

 one for which the chemical profession should urgently seek a 

 remedy. 



I wish it to be understood, moreover, that my remarks apply 

 especially to the general works chemists, to whom is entrusted the 

 testing of the raw materials and finished products, and the exercise 

 of a general scientific supervision. With the more important ques- 

 tion of industrial chemical research it is quite impossible to deal 

 within the limits — which, I fear, have already been overstepped — 

 of an Annual Address. I would only say that chemists competent 

 to initiate and to carry through to a successful issue the kind of 

 investigations which are of importance to manufacturers are, com- 

 paratively speaking, few in number, and that the chemical investi- 

 gator, like the poet, must be born. He may be shaped, but he cer- 

 tainly cannot be made, and it would save not a little disappointment 

 if it were recognised more generally on the industrial side that men 

 possessing all the special qualities of intellect and of character which 

 go to make a successful chemical investigator are not very fre- 



