19151 Science and Industrial Problems SO^ 



AVEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, February 5, 1915. 



Donald Hood, C.V.O. M.D. F.R.C.P., Vice-President, 

 in the Chair. 



Professor Arthur W. Crossley, D.Sc. F.Pt.S. For.Sec.C.S. 



Science and Industrial Problems. 



" The industrial development to \Yhich I have referred would never 

 have been possible, if this domain had not been studied in a most 

 thorough and scientific manner in the laboratories of our factories,, 

 for it must be remembered that pure scientific research work, carried 

 out in the laboratory, is the soul of industrial prosperity." 



These words are not my own, but were spoken as recently as last 

 June by one of the most prominent industrial chemists of this or 

 any other time ; prominent in the sense of possessing great scientific 

 ability, and also in the more material sense of possessing abundance 

 of the fruits of industrial success. 



The coupling of the words science and industry in the title of a 

 lecture has, in this country, frequently been made the occasion for 

 drawing attention to the lack of appreciation, on the part of our 

 chemical manufacturers, of the necessity for applying scientific 

 method to industrial problems, but it is not my intention to touch 

 this side of the subject this evening. I will content myself with 

 saying that many of our manufacturers have shown themselves to 

 be strangely deficient in their appreciation of science in the past, 

 and there has been a lamentable and mutual distrust on the part of 

 manufacturers and professorial chemists, for which state of affairs 

 the latter and the institutions to which they belong cannot be 

 regarded as entirely blameless. The research worker in a scientific 

 institution in this country — more is the pity — works simply as an 

 individual towards the realization of his own original ideas, which in 

 general have little or nothing to do with trade problems. According 

 to prevailing beliefs, it is altogether undignified for a professor to 

 have anything to do with trade : he must not approach either it or 

 that awful thing called a patent, otherwise both he and his institution 

 will thereby become defiled. But to the professor falls the duty of 

 training students, who are to go out into the world as technical 

 chemists ; and how can he be expected to do this efiiciently, when he 

 is discouraged from having any association with the manufacturer 

 and his wants ? What a different tale could be told of the present 



