July ii, 1918] 



NATURE 



379 



It is mournful, but instructive, to compare our present 

 position in the coal-tar colour industry with the pro- 

 spects which that branch of applied chemistry exhibited 

 to Great Britain in earlv davs. The first coal-tar 

 colour was made by Perki'n in '1856, and in 1862 Prof. 

 A. W. von Hofmann, one of the foremost chemists 

 of the day, a German domiciled in this countr}-, painted 

 an alluring picture of the future in store for us. Said 

 he :—•' England will, beyond question, at no distant 

 day, become herself the greatest colour-producing 

 country in the world— nay, by the strangest of revolu- 

 tions, she may, ere long, send her coal-derived blues 

 to indigo-growing India, her tar-distilled crimsons to 

 cochmeal-producing .Mexico, etc." When we contrast 

 this dazzling prospect, made by one of the most far- 

 sighted of contemporary German chemists, with the 

 actual situation, we cannot but ask why the event fell 

 so miserably behind the forecast. The' reason, in mv 

 opinion, lies in the fact that opulent, indolent Great 

 Britain has for the past century permitted all its 

 educational interests to pass into the hands of a 

 particular caste which despises all knowledge difficult 

 to attain, and, to camouflage its own idleness has 

 always pressed the notion that a first-hand knowledge 

 of the facts of natural science and the conclusions to 

 be drawn therefrom is unimportant, and that the voung 

 man or young woman does his or her best in the 

 world if thrown into it entirely destitute of anything 

 but an evanescent acquaintance with certain classics 

 and a decided taste for so-called learned leisure The 

 greater among the ancients were creators of new 

 knowledge as ^^ell as masters of the whole accumulated 

 world s stock of information ; their successors, unpro- 

 ductive of positive knowledge and very ignorant of 

 the great changes taking place around them, can but 

 wonder at and comment vagtielv on the genius of 

 Archimedes and Aristotle, and necessarily despise the 

 achievements of Newton and Kelvin, their modern 

 prototypes. x 



I have aheadv directed attention to the frequently 

 expressed opinion that, as a nation, we are incapable 

 of excelling in the fine organic chemical indu'^trv • let 

 me quote one instance, small in itself, but lan^e in 

 Its consequences, in disproof of this view. 



The ordinary photographic plate is sensitive only to 

 a region in the blue of the spectrum, but by incor- 

 porating certain rather fugitive organic dves with the 

 sensitive film, the latter may be rendered sensitive to 

 the green yellow, and red parts of the spectrum; 

 photographic plates so treated are described as pan- 

 chromatic. The quantities of the sensitising^ dves 

 required for the whole world's consumption in "^lornr.l 

 times IS minute, bein.^^. indeed, of the order of a few 

 pounds per annum. Until 191;; these substances had 

 never been made outside Central Europe, and little 

 was known by us of their compositions or of the 

 methods of preparing them, as they were all sold 

 under_ trade names. The manufacture of these 

 materials, small as was the whole business, had been 

 industriously cultivated bv the German colour-works, 

 and, as these colour sensitisers arc essential in aerial" 

 photography, their scarcitx li.canv of serious import 

 quite early in the war. 



The experimental investigation of the whole subject 

 was quickly put in hand in this country, and within 

 a few months amnle supplies of the usual sensitisers 

 were produced. Further, the newly established De- 

 partment of Scientific and Indusfrial Research financed 

 the development of the study of photographic sensi- 

 tisers; as a result of this action, new sensitising dves 

 have been produced which are far superior to the older 

 ones It is safe to assert that the manufacture of 

 panchromatic plates has now attained a degree of per- 

 fection in this country such as will long defy com- 

 petition. 



Ihis IS but one case that may be quoted from among 

 a host of others, all of which prove conclusively that, 

 given a little encouragement and assistance, British 

 chemistry is capable not only of giving much-needed 

 relief in this time of strain, but also of meeting every 

 demand which can be made on it when the period of 

 It construction commences. 



NO. 



2541, VOL. lOl] 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Birmingham.— Dr. G. N. Watson has been ap- 

 pointed to the chair of mathematics, which is being 

 vacated by Dr. R. S. Heath at the close of the current 

 session. 



At a degree congregation held on July 6 the degree 

 of M.Sc. was conferred on the following" candidates : — 

 Ernest Coupland, Junquei Su-Kwang Lee, William 

 John Owen, Jui Hui Teng, Sih Ling Ting and Nai 

 Yone. 



In the latest instalment of the 1916 series of "The 

 Athenaeum Subject Index to Periodicals," issued at 

 the request of the Council of the Library Association, 

 the subjects of education and child-welfare are dealt 

 with. Among the periodicals the articles of which arc 

 indexed we notice N.ature, the Times Educational 

 Supplement, the School World, and the Journal oi 

 Education. This issue of the " Index" makes a special 

 appeal to all persons interested in educational ques- 

 tions ; its price is is. net, and copies may be obtained 

 from the Athenaeum, Bream's Buildings, ("lianctrx 

 Lane, E.C.4. 



The Secretary of State for the Royal Air Eofce 

 announces that the sum of 25,000/. has been placed at 

 the disposal of the Government by Sir Basil Zaharoff, 

 G.B.E., for the purpose of endowing a professorship 

 of aviation. This munificent donation is in continua- 

 tion of donations previously made by Sir Basil Zaharoff 

 for the foundation of chairs of aviation at the L'ni- 

 versities of Paris and Petrograd, in order to assist in 

 the progress of aviation among the Allies, and it is 

 his hope that the occupants of the chairs will con- 

 tinuously exchange views. It is proposed that the 

 professorship shall be called the Zah.iroff professorship 

 of aviation, and that it shall be a chair of the I'ni- 

 versity of London attached to the Imperial Collt^'' of 

 .Science and Technology. 



Scientia for March last contains an interesting paper 

 on " Le Nouvel Humanisme," by Prof. George Sarton. 

 of Harvard University, L'.S.A., who points out that 

 the war has shown that science must be given a much 

 more important place in schools and colleges than 

 it has hitherto occupied. In the past, systems of 

 education have been drawn up by classical scholars, 

 who have considered that the study of languages, his- 

 tory, and literature is more likclv to train \(iiiths to 

 become good citizens than the studx of s(i( nd . Prof. 

 Sarton holds that teachers of sriciuc arc i)ari!\ 1. spon- 

 sible for this opinion. Too ofit n has sri( ik c Ix ( n 

 taught as a jumble of isolated fads ami thcorio. 

 Prof. Sarton proposes to introduce, as a reform, 

 instruction upon the history of the development of 

 science in all countries from the earliest time. The 

 more important facts and theories of ^(I.ik. ^\o^lll! 

 be unfolded to the student in the historical ordt r oi 

 actual discovery. He would then find that advances 

 were due not so much to some transcendent genius 

 as to the general state of human knowledge when 

 they were made. The next step forward being fairly 

 obvious, any intelligent and well-educated man might 

 have made the advance. Tt is believed that instruction 

 on tli("~i- lines could not fail- to ^lir tlir mind- of tlic 



