NATURE 



391 



THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1915. 



NATIONAL NEEDS. 



HIS MAJESTY THE KING, at the opening 

 of the Congress of Applied Chemistry 

 held in London six years ago, made the following 

 r.otable remark : — 



" I fully appreciate the important part which 

 I hemistry plays in almost every branch of our 

 modern industry. We all recognise that without 

 a scientific foundation no permanent superstruc- 

 ture can be raised. Does not experience warn us 

 that the rule of thumb is dead, and that the rule 

 ot science has taken its place, that to-day we can- 

 not be satisfied with the crude methods which 

 were sufficient for our forefathers, and that those 

 !L;ieat industries which do not keep abreast of the 

 advance of science must surely and rapidly 

 decline? " 



Little heed was given to this warning then or 

 since, and it has needed the most terrible war of 

 any time, in which all the resources of science 

 and the capacity for scientific organisation are 

 brought into action, to awaken the nation partially 

 to a sense of the strength of the forces which 

 natural knowledge provides, either to build up or 

 to destroy. Attention is necessarily concentrated 

 at present upon the mobilisation of science and 

 invention for military and naval purposes, but we 

 must prepare for the unrelenting industrial war 

 which will follow the conflict of arms ; and the 

 only sure way of doing this is to put into practice 

 the sound principles to which the King gave 

 utterance in 1909, and which we have persistently 

 urged upon a couple of generations. If the 

 country is not placed in a position to face all 

 ' onipetition with confidence, it will be because 

 Ministers of State and manufacturers continue to 

 disregard British genius for original scientific 

 work, and neglect to offer sufficient inducements 

 lor its development. 



The first thing needful is to change the attitude 

 the general public towards science from that 

 "I indifference to one of intelligent interest, by 

 making all education more scientific. When this 

 has been accomplished, ignorance of scientific 

 methods on the part of municipal and State 

 officials will not be tolerated, and the Ministry of 

 Science, which Sir William Crookes adumbrated 

 in his presidential address to the Royal Society 

 last week, will come within the realm of practical 

 |)olitics. Such a Ministry or Board would secure 

 ilie organisation of our scientific forces to the 

 NO. 2406, VOL. 96] 



national advantage, and would, as Sir William 

 Crookes said, make scientific research "an invalu- 

 able profession, with a status of its own at least 

 on a level with that of other learned professions." 

 Our scientific and industrial history shows that 

 we are second to none in capacity for original 

 work and invention, but the State has neglected 

 its duty to organise the powers it thus possesses, 

 and only lately has it done anything to promote 

 co-operation between manufacturers and scientific 

 workers, by the appointment of the Advisory 

 Council on Scientific and Industrial Research. 



We have had before us recently several papers 

 and addresses, by men of distinguished emin- 

 ence, in which reference is made to British and 

 German attitudes towards scientific work, particu- 

 larly as regards its relation to chemical industries. 

 Dr. C. F. Juritz, in his presidential address to 

 the third general meeting of the South African 

 Association of Analytical Chemists, held on 

 July 9, took as his text the general ignorance 

 which is shown by the State and the great mass 

 of the population of the British Empire as to the 

 work of the chemist. In consequence of this 

 ignorance the remuneration paid to the trained 

 chemist, especially to those occupied in industry, 

 is, on the whole, miserably inadequate ; with the 

 result that the best men are driven to apply their 

 talents in other fields of work. It is primarily her 

 appreciation of the value of her scientific workers 

 which has placed Germany in the forefront of 

 modern industry. Britain is suffering in the 

 present war because of her neglect of those very 

 services which Germany has done so much to 

 foster. Science has a right to look for more 

 recognition on the part of Government and a 

 greater scope for her activities ; the scientific 

 worker for better prospects of obtaining good 

 remuneration so that he can pursue his work 

 without harassing anxiety as to ways and means. 

 It is owing to the highly specialised character 

 of his work that the chemist has received less 

 public acknowledgment than workers in any other 

 profession, yet chemistry and related sciences lie 

 at the base of most industries. 



Dr. L. H. Baekeland, in an interesting address 

 on applied chemistry which appeared in Science 

 of October 22, reiterates the statement which 

 has been frequently emphasised in our columns : 

 that a chemist is not a druggist, or even a mere 

 analyser of chemicals, but a scientific man upon 

 whom, if he is adequately trained, the advance 

 of the big scientific industries of the world rests ; 

 and, further, that the economic welfare of our 



Q 



