PRESIDENT S ADDRESS. 9 ' 



the regiments, mostly the infantry. Perhaps we lost 60 per cent, of the 

 mobilised chemists below the age of 40. . . . At the National School. 

 in the scientific department, there was a loss of about 52 per cent, in the 

 first ten months of the war. I cannot tell you emphatically enough that 

 we must in all of our allied nations do our best to keep scientific men 

 where they are most needed, not only for war problems, but for the future 

 upbuilding of these nations.* 



Such quotations as the above afford an informative pano- 

 rama to the average South African, who has, I fear, but Httle 

 conception of the manner in which the position is regarded by 

 scientific inen overseas ; they give us, moreover, some inkling of 

 where Germany's power and our own weakness He. If we wish 

 to probe a Httle further into ulterior causes, we may find some- 

 thing of what we seek in Sir Ronald Ross's remark that 



for more than half a century before the war England has ceased to be 

 an intellectual nation ; the public at large has remained indifferent to 

 science, art, literature, invention, and all the great intellectual pursuits, 

 and has given itself up to game-playing, party-politics, faddism, and a 

 debased drama. We are now paying the penalty, and, if I do not mistake, 

 will have to pay a heavier one before the end. 



How is it that we do not realise that they do these things 

 differently in Germany? Mr. A. G. Thacker, writing in Science 

 Progress i8 months agof on the recent advances in anthropology, 

 had occasion to refer incidentally to German science, and used 

 these words : 



Even now the people of this country do not properly appreciate the 

 fact that the remarkable strength displayed by the German nation during 

 the last thirty months has been very largely the power of German science. 

 Eailing a much more adequate cultivation of science, there will be no 

 great future for Great Britain. 



Now why has German science such a power? The answer 

 is : Because of the wise policy pursued in connection therewith. 

 Let me offer you an illustration. Prof. J. Stieglitz, of the Uni- 

 versity of Chicago, President of the American Chemical Society, 

 a few months ago said with special emphasis that, in his opinion, 

 the most important single factor which would lead to a tremen- 

 dous increase in power in the industrial development of the 

 United States is not immediately a question of scientific achieve- 

 ment, but a factor found in a simple psychological analysis of 

 the country's industrial situation. J 



Let our manufacturers but awaken [said he] to the full meaning of 

 the simple old behest that the labourer is worthy of his hire, and they will 

 be astounded at the results. 



He went on to relate how the chief chemist in one of the 

 largest manufacturing concerns in the country perfected a device 

 that saved the corporation perhaps 80,000 dollars a year: his 

 reward was a princely increase of 200 or 300 dollars a year in 

 salary. " Let me say," he continued, " that I promptly took him 

 away from this corporation — we cannot afford to waste good 

 men in such places." American tendency, he said, is to exploit 



*Jour. Ind. and Eng. Chem. (1917), 9 [10], 925-926. 



t January, 1917, p. 477- 



t Science (1917), 46, 324, 325. 



