096 



NATURE 



[February 17, 19 16 



this reason that we require men to be trained, not 

 merely to make scientiiic discoveries, but to make 

 iiseiul commercial applications of them, which are 

 wealth-producing or wealth-conserving in <-! national 

 sense. This requires a peculiar combination of 

 scientific ability and commercial insight, and it is 

 just here that Germany has the advantage. 



Mr. Lloyd George said on one occasion that he 

 feared Germany's war-bread spirit, by which he meant 

 the willing subjection of a whole Empire to discipline. 

 We might say, with even more truth, that what is 

 to be teared is Germany's militant chemistry and 

 engineering, or that combination of commercialised 

 science which is relentlessly applied to undermine and 

 take away sources of power of other nations. This, 

 however, is what we have to meet. We have to train 

 chemists, engineers, electricians, and physicists who 

 are not only learned in the knowledge of their science 

 and originative in discovering new facts and prin- 

 ciples, but have also a keen commercial sense which 

 directs them to the solution of the practically useful 

 problems. We have, therefore, to create a very much 

 closer union between industry and science. To some 

 scientific men this seems derogatory to the dignity 

 of science. On the other hand, men concerned with 

 the business side of manufacture are apt to under- 

 value the aid which science can give them. Mean- 

 while our scientific industries suffer from this dissocia- 

 tion. 



In the first place we should aim at bringing about 

 a much more intimate relation between the universities 

 and technical colleges and the factories and work- 

 shops, so that the college teaching may result in pro- 

 ducing a type of man more useful in the factory. 

 For this reason I am an advocate of the so-called 

 sandwich system, by which the student spends a year 

 alternately in the shop or factory and in the college, 

 the first and third year being at the college and 

 the second and fourth in the shop or factory. This 

 turns out a better type of man than two years at the 

 college and two years in the shop taken consecutively. 

 It should apply not only to engineers in all branches, 

 but to chemists as well. 



Then, again, conferences should be held from time 

 to time between teachers and practical engineers and 

 chemists for the exchange of ideas on the subject of 

 the schemes of work and study to be followed by the 

 student-apprentice, so as to turn out alUround men 

 and not unpractical theorists or unscientific practists. 

 We have to improve in many ways our college teach- 

 ing, so as to expend to better advantage the available 

 rime and place more stress on ability to use informa- 

 tion than to store it. Engineering and chemical 

 students should be brought much earlier than at 

 present into contact with questions of cost and esti- 

 mates, so that they mav know not only how and why 

 a certain machine works, but what it costs to make 

 it, or to run it. They will then be far better able to 

 take advantage of the workshop training and obtain 

 earlier that " workshop sense " or instinct which looks 

 at everything from the point of view of cost and profit, 

 as well as operation or efficiency. 



We have before us a tremendous task to restore the 

 waste of this great war. To do this we have to utilise 

 all waste products and to abolish waste and inefficiency 

 in all departments of life, domestic, commercial, 

 political, and industrial, and we have to get rid of 

 them in scientific work as well. We can only do this 

 by bringing to bear the scientific method upon all 

 these regions of activity and even upon scientific re- 

 search itself. As a small contribution to this work the 

 above suggestions are tentatively put forward, and 

 with the greatest diffidence I submit them now to 

 vour careful corksideration. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge. — A friend of the late Dr. Donaldson, 

 master of Magdalen College, has endowed a bye- 

 fellowship of the annual value of looL, to be called 

 the Donaldson Bye-Fellowship, in memory of the late 

 master ; the fellowship is intended for the encourage- 

 ment of research, and is tenable for one jear. The 

 Financial Board lepi^rts that Sir Eustace Gurney has 

 offered to present to the University a farming estate 

 of about 257 acres with a view to the encouragement 

 of the study of forestry in the University ; the net 

 income in rent of the estate is about locl. per annum.. 

 The General Board of Studies, reports that the council 

 of the Royal Geographical Society has decided to make 

 grants of 300Z. per annum for five years to the schools 

 of geography in Oxford and Cambridge. Mr. H. H. 

 Briridley, of St. John's College, has been appointed 

 demonstrator of biology to medical students, and Mr. 

 C. Warburton, of Christ's College, demonstrator in 

 medical entomology; both appointments are for a 

 period of five years. 



London. — The following new doctorates in science 

 are recorded in the London University Gazette for 

 February 9 : — Physics : E. J. Evans (Imperial College 

 — ^Royal College of Science), for a thesis consisting of 

 three papers on spectroscopy published in (i) Naturp:, 

 September 4, 1913; (ii) Phil. Mag., February, 1915; 

 (iii) Phil. Mag., January 1916. Organic Chemistry: 

 Biman Bihari Dey (Imperial College — Royal College 

 of Science), for a thesis entitled "A Study in the 

 Coumarin Condensation" (Trans. Chem. Soc, 1915)- 

 Applied Statistics : Leon Isserlis (University College),, 

 for a thesis consisting of the following papers : — (i) 

 " On the Multiple Correlation Ratio," parts i. and ii. 

 (Biometrika, November, 1914, and November, 1915); 

 (ii) " On the Conditions under which the ' Probable 

 Errors ' of Frequency Distributions have a Real Signi- 

 ficance " (Proc. Roy, Soc, A., 92, 1915). 



A NOTE in the Times of February 10 states that Mr. 

 C. E. Probyn, who died on December i last, left 

 estate of the gross value of 14,563?., the residue of 

 which, amounting to about lo.oooi., is bequeathed to 

 the University of Bristol. 



We gather from the Miinchener medizinische 

 Wochenschrift that of the 18,110 students inscribed 

 during the present semester in seven of the German 

 universities, 13,629 are absent in the army, i.e. 

 slightly above 75 per cent. 



Dr. E. H. Griffiths, principal of the University 

 College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, who had 

 arranged to resign at the end of the present session, 

 has consented, at the request of the council, to continue 

 in office until the end of the session 1917-18. 



We learn from the Pioneer Mail that the staff has 

 now been selected for the Lady Hardinge Medical Col- 

 lege and Hospital at Delhi, which Lord Hardinge 

 opens to-day :— Principal and professor of medicine^ 

 Dr. K. A. Piatt ; professor of anatomy and gynaeco- 

 logy. Miss Hitton; professor of pathology. Miss Field; 

 professor of anatomy. Miss Murphy; professor of 

 chemistry, Miss A. M. Bane; professor of biology and 

 physiology. Miss M. R. Holmer. It is expected that 

 tuition will begin next September, and the Govern- 

 ment of India will contribute a lakh of rupees (6700Z.) 

 yearly to the annual maintenance charges. 



The issue of the Pall Mall Gazette for Februar>- S 

 contained an interesting account of an interview with 

 Sir Philip Magnus, in which he expressed his views 



NO. 2416, VOL. 96] 



