PROCEEDINGS OF THE OHIO ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 297 



We are sending to America the finest products of our factories, our 

 mills, our fields and our mines ; some of our choicest works of art will 

 be there, but above all of these Germany is most proud of the men she 

 produces. You are the best we have and you must go to represent us.' 



The man thus addressed was not a field marshal of the Ger- 

 man army, or an admiral of her navy, her most famous diplo- 

 mat or her richest iron-master. He was Herman Ludwig Ferd- 

 inand von Helmholtz, Germany's greatest natural philosopher, 

 at once the most versatile and profound scholar of the nineteenth 

 century. 



The incident is well worthy of our attention as a striking 

 illustration of the value which is set upon men of science and 

 their work by the German Empire. During the past fifty years 

 no other nation has so encouraged scientific research and by no 

 other nation have scientific discoveries been so readily accepted 

 and so quickly utilized. In all legislation upon economic ques- 

 tions the man of science has had paramount influence, and in 

 that greatest of all economics, the prevention of unnecessary 

 waste and the getting out of every material thing the last drop 

 of usefulness, the Germans, from prince to peasant, have no 

 rival.- The administration of her municipal governments is a 

 model for the rest of the world, because the advice of the scholar 

 has been sought at every turn. All of her foremost industrial 

 enterprises have had their beginning in the laboratory. In many 



' This is no imaginary interview. I have given as nearly as pos- 

 sible the exact words used by Baroness von Helmholtz in telling me of it 

 afterwards. 



■ A personal experience, amusing but instructive, may be worth re- 

 lating. While living in one of the largest cities in Germany I ordered a 

 suit of clothes from a good shop on one of the principal streets. On 

 the first trial of the coat I failed to find the small "change" or ticket 

 pocket usually on the right side. When I called attention to its absence 

 the tailor showed me that it had been put in on the inside of the larger 

 pocket below, explaining that if he put it where it is usually placed by 

 American or English workmen it would be impossible to have the coat 

 turned, as the cut in the cloth would then show on the left side ! And 

 when I expressed my preference for the usual location he remarked, 

 "Nearly every gentleman in Germany has his coat turned once." 



