D PRESIDENT S ADDRESS. 



Prof. G. G. Henderson, of the Royal Technical College, 

 Glasgow, addressing the British Association as President of 

 Section B. animadverted strongly on British failure to keep pace 

 with other countries in industrial chemistry. This he ascribed 

 to the general ignorance of and indifference to the methods and 

 results of scientific work which characterise the people of Great 

 Britain. 



For many years past [he said] our leaders in science have done all 

 that lay in their power to awaken the country to the inevitable and deplor- 

 able results of this form of " sleeping sickness," but hitherto tlieir recep- 

 tion has been much the same as that accorded to the hero of " The 

 Pilgrim's Progress : " they lookt upon him, and began to reply in this sort : 

 Simple said, / see no danger; Sloth said. Yet a little more sleep; and 

 Presumption said, Every vat must stand upon his ozvn bottom. And they 

 lay down to sleep again, and Christian went on his way."* 



Similar in its kernel was an utterance by G. W. Thompson 

 in the course of an address to the American Institute of Chemical 

 Engineers last year.f 



Germany has made great advances in chemistry. Some think that 

 this is due to her system of education, and probably this is partly true. 

 Some think that it is due to the far-sighted wisdom of public men. This. 

 too, is probably partly true, but the real success of chemistry in Ger- 

 many in my own opinion has been due to its greater popular appreciation. 

 . . . Progress ultimately is in the people of a nation, their developing 

 thoughts, their appreciation of the world that is about them. 



One is astounded to find that a blundering nation may receive 

 a staggering shock as a result of its blundering course and yet 

 persist in the selfsame course. One expects a civilised nation 

 to show more common-sense than a flock of sheep dashed into 

 by a railway train. Britain was staggered when she discovered, 

 at the outbreak of war, her extreme poverty in three departments 

 of chemical manufacture — synthetic dyes, synthetic organic prin- 

 ciples, synthetic drugs. One tnight imagine that this would have 

 taught her wisdom, and that she would forthwith have begini 

 employing her chemists to best advantage ; but no, it was not 

 until the introduction of asphyxiating gases by the Germans 

 that it begati to dawn on Britain that she was acting unwisely 

 in making musket-bearers of her chemists. It was then, as 

 Nature points out.t that the War Office called for volunteers 

 with training in chemistry, and formed a new fighting force, 

 " selecting the officers from chemists already holding commis- 

 sions, and transferred non-commissioned officers and men with 

 scientific qualifications from other units." But the awakening 

 came far too late to be of the service that it might have been. 

 Let me quote to you some forcible sentences by Dr. Geoffrey 

 Martin, a graduate of the Universities of London, Bristol, and 

 Rostock, a lecturer on technical chemistry in one of London's 

 University colleges, one of the most lucid writers of the day 

 on both theoretical and applied chemistry, and the author of 

 numerous works both in English and in German. He says : — 



* Rept. Brit. Ass. for Adv. of Sc. (1916). Newcastle-on-Tyne. 369. 

 ■f Jotirn. Ind. and Eng. Chemistry (1917). 9 [2], 182. 

 X March 29, 1917, p. 85. 



