784 Prof. H. E. Armstrong on Low-Temperature Research 



subsidized them, on condition that the works should have the first 

 offer of their results and that publication should be arrested until it 

 was clear that they were not of immediate practical value. The 

 atmosphere of the laboratory was entirely changed in consequence : 

 it became materialized ; instead of being one of light and learning 

 and of breadth and freedom, it became one of secrecy and essentially 

 narrow. Each assistant had his set of pupils and these were pledged 

 not to talk freely, as of old, of their results ; the commercial attitude 

 of mind took the place of the old belief in science for its own sake. 



Our schools have been, in the main, free from this taint, because 

 manufacturers have made no systematic use of them. This may have 

 been bad for our manufacturers ; it may have had the result that too 

 few have been attracted into science, because it did not pay ; but it 

 has been good for science, in the sense that we have been free to 

 work and develop in whatever directions we chose. The English 

 chemical school, of late years, small as it may have been, influenced 

 to an excess as it has been by the German school of thought, has 

 none the less been far broader and more independent than any of the 

 others. 



Our difficulty will be, while forwarding the aims of industry, 

 to maintain our independence and freedom — so that we may con- 

 tinue in the path of discovery and extend the bounds of knowledge. 

 The danger that we may become the slaves of industry is far from 

 remote. The temptation will be the harder to resist in consequence 

 of the State patronage and interference with which we are now 

 threatened. A department of Government has been called into being, 

 with a round million sterling at its command, to promote industrial 

 research. The immediate progress of industry may conceivably be 

 promoted, in great degree, by such a body, under present conditions ; 

 though ultimately, unless German and American example be followed 

 and scientific research be regarded as a necessary adjunct of the 

 factory, little real progress will be made, because a scientific atmo- 

 sphere will not have been created within the works. Moreover the 

 results of effective industrial research must necessarily be kept private 

 and cannot even be made known throughout a trade — unless com- 

 petition be altogether done away with, an unlikely event. 



To the lay mind, the organization of research may seem to offer 

 not a few advantages, especially in view of the complaint made so 

 frequently of late by scientific workers that original inquiry has^ 

 not been sufficiently promoted in the past. But it must always be 

 under the condition that grants are made to workers as a right 

 rather than as a favour. The scientific fraternity will sign its own 

 death warrant if it consent to the introduction of any system of 

 bureaucratic control which might affect the very limited class who 

 alone are capable of truly original work, such as were Eumford, 

 Young, Davy and Faraday. Whatever system of organization be 



