44 



NA TURE 



[November 8, 1900 



Royal Society, and even for some years afterwards, the real 

 students of electricity in England could be counted on the fingers 

 of one's hands. Many of us remember the first gramme 

 magneto machine that came to this country, a scientific toy. 

 in 1874. How many engineers dreamt that a great new branch 

 of engineering had been started ? Even in 1878 engineers were 

 as a rule quite ignorant of electricity, and since then every year, 

 although newspaper writers have talked largely of the age of 

 electricity, the men actually engaged in electrical industries have 

 acted as if the greatest of changes were not perpetually going 

 on in it. To be left behind, or to become camp followers, 

 children of Gibeon, this is the usual fate of the men who scorn 

 theory. In 1882-4 we used to have to pay men 200/. and 300/. 

 a year because they had a slight knowledge of electrical matters. 

 In 1884-6 these very men were not worth twenty shillings a 

 week ; they were weeded out of the profession, and their places 

 were taken by men of better knowledge. Two or three years 

 after, these better men were again found to have been weeded 

 out, because men of still better knowledge were available. And 

 so it has gone on ever since. Men learn just enough to get 

 posts ; they settle down in these posts and scorn theory. They 

 actually forget what little theory they once did possess. .They 

 know a great deal about existing machines, but presently they 

 discover that improvements have been going on, and that they 

 no longer have a right to say that they belong to the engineer,- 

 ing profession. In every year one has told men, "You will be 

 left behind. See A and B and C. I told them three years ago, 

 when their names were in everybody's mouths, that they would 

 be left behind like their predecessors, and they laughed. Now 

 I tell you and you laugh, and you also will be left behind. Yes, 

 I know that you get a good salary or large fees, and your head 

 touches the sky. Nevertheless, because you neglect theory and 

 the simple mathematics, by means of which theory is made 

 available in practical problems, you will have to take a back seat 

 presently, for our profession is in its early youth and is growing 

 rapidly. " 



Remember that I do not now refer to the few exceptional 

 heaven-born engineers who, in spite of bad training, do manage 

 somehow to pick up the necessary knowledge. I speak of the 

 average men, many of whom are now living in the same old 

 fool's paradise. They know enough for present needs ; they 

 scorn the simple principles which underlie all our work ; they 

 scorn the easy mathematics by which these principles are most 

 readily employed in practical problems ; they will have their 

 reward. 



Just think of what is occurring at the present time. In 

 England we have cheap coal, and it can be carried easily. In 

 Switzerland and other countries where there is no cheap coal 

 the water-power had to be utilised and power had to be trans- 

 mitted great distances electrically. This needed high voltage, and 

 as it is difficult to get high voltage with direct current machines, 

 alternating currents were used, and on account of motor troubles 

 multiphase working has been introduced. What a revelation it 

 was to almost all of us, that visit of a year ago to Switzerland ! 

 We saw enormous schemes of lighting and traction and power. 

 We saw electric trains driven by distant waterfalls sandwiched 

 in among ordinary trains keeping proper time on working rail- 

 ways. We had known that there were great schemes- carried 

 out in Germany and America and other countries, and yet all 

 the machines were quite unfamiliar to us. We were very much 

 like what engineers of 1870 would have been if suddenly 

 brought into a generating station. Is it not a fact that some of 

 us, said to be eminent and thought to be practical, asked 

 questions and made remarks which showed that we did not 

 know the most elementary principles of three-phase working. 

 Is it then any wonder that the traction schemes now being 

 developed in England, on lines that are certainly not the best 

 for this country of their adoption, are altogether dependent on 

 the use of foreign electrical machinery and employ foreign 

 electrical engineers? I am not putting this altogether fairly, for 

 municipal procrastination has prevented our development, and 

 yet I am not putting it altogether unfairly. We know too little 

 theory. 



I am afraid that just now we are in a rather tight place. I 

 would give something to know how we in this room are going to 

 get acquainted with modern electrical engineering. Our usual 

 way of learning is by actual handling of things. But if the 

 millions of pounds' worth of machinery coming to England 

 every year is all foreign, and is used mainly under foreign super- 

 intendence, our usual method of study is made very difficult. 



NO. 1619, VOL 63] 



True, there are American and German, and, indeed, English 

 publications which would give a knowledge of the theory, but 

 not, I think, to the average English electrical engineer. I know 

 of many men, twenty-five to forty years of age, who seldom come 

 to our meetings, and who say they are silent in discussions be- 

 cause they cannot be understood ; perhaps these men will find 

 a way to save us all from being left behind. There is much 

 more that I might say in this connection. An individual Eng- 

 lishman may be left behind other Englishmen, and all English 

 electrical engineers may be left behind the rest of the world, but 

 all electrical engineers of the world may even be left behind 

 other appliers of science. It is not merely that the incandescent 

 mantle of the gas engineer is improving and necessitates im- 

 provements in our filaments, but, in spite of the flourishing con- 

 ditions of our factories just now, I could give many other 

 illustrations of how we shall all suffer if we do not keep adding 

 to our knowledge. Twenty years ago, when giving some lectures 

 in Clerkenwell to workers in the then flourishing watch trade, I 

 ventured to prophesy the decay of that trade. But I am afraid 

 that the case of Jonah and Nineveh is the only one in which 

 prediction of disaster led to reform. I venture on no prophecy, 

 therefore, because it might harden your hearts. 



Much of the evil we suffer from is due to our average young 

 men being pitchforked into works where they get no instruction, 

 as soon as they leave school. If ordinary school education were 

 worth the name, and if schoolmasters could be brought to sie 

 that we do not live in the fifteenth century, if boys were really 

 taught to think for themselves through common-sense training 

 in natural science, things would not be so bad. But the average 

 boy leaves an English school with no power to think for himself, 

 and with less than no knowledge of natural science ; and he 

 learns what he calls mathematics in such a fashion that he 

 hales the sight of a mathematical expression all his life after. 



And what is the result ? English engineers do make a won- 

 derfully intimate acquaintance with the machines and tools that 

 they work with, but when it comes to the manufacture of new 

 things they do it by fitting and trying, by quite unnecessary 

 expenditure of money through trial and error. A machine is 

 made and tried, and then another better one, until a good re- 

 sult is arrived at. And this method did well enough in the 

 past, and would do well enough in the future if only we had 

 not to compete with foreigners who can really calculate. It is 

 not all smoke ; there is a real danger in this foreign competition 

 unless we mend our ways. There is an absolute necessity for 

 great change in English ways ; but there are so many people 

 interested in the maintenance of old methods of working ; so 

 many people who think they will lose their bread and butter if 

 a change takes place ; so much capital, scholastic and other, 

 invested in our old machinery, that it takes a catastrophe to 

 produce changes. Much of the strength and weakness of 

 England has always lain in her conservatism. We have beei> 

 talking of standardisation of machinery lately, so I may say thali 

 things have been standardised in England for a long time. 

 Now to get all the good effect of standardisation, it is occasion- 

 ally necessary to go in for wholesale scrapping, and it is this 

 scrapping part of the business that we dislike in England. We 

 here all know that the District and Metropolitan Railways 

 might have been worked electrically years ago just as easily as 

 they will be when we are allowed to begin upon them, but of 

 course the scrapping of a lot of steam locomotives was a serious 

 thing. The loss of experience to English electrical erigineers, 

 because of this hatred of scrapping, is leading to other incalcul- 

 able losses. I understand that the whole generating and line 

 plant — the whole machinery of the Boston tramways — has been 

 scrapped several times since they first were driven electrically. 

 Japan has scrapped all her old civilisation just as France did. 

 During the century now dying Germany has made the most 

 sweeping changes in her law and school legislation, and indeed 

 in everything. England and Spain and .China, how they differ 

 in this respect, even from England's own colonies. 



Of course it may be said that English customs have growri 

 during centuries ; they are well tried, and there is no pressing 

 need for sudden alteration. I quite agree, but unfortunately 

 this very perfection and fitness of our customs have bred in us a 

 want of flexibility, so that in cases where a sudden change is 

 really necessary, we are disinclined to make the change merely 

 because it is a change and for no other reason. 



No one has ever heard me speak of the decadence of England. 

 When the greatness and the wealth, the manliness and the 

 strength, the healthiness and good life of England are showi* 



