September i8, 1919] 



NATURE 



55 



various Government Departments durint? the war. 

 The Ministry of Munitions Inventions Department 

 was, so far as I could see, eminently well managed. 



Many of the so-called inventions were not inven- 

 tions at all. Some were not at all new-; in other 

 cases an idea only was mooted. Could so-and-so not 

 be done? and so on, and the Department was sup- 

 posed to be grateful for the idea, and to do the rest, 

 besides rewarding the proposer. A favourite notion, 

 which illustrates the diffusion of scientific knowledge 

 among different classes of people, was that of taking 

 a magnet — any magnet — up on an aeroplane, and 

 using it to attract Zeppelins and other aircraft. 

 Others suggested electromagnets fed by machines 

 which would have involved carrying into the air on 

 an aeroplane a fully equipped power-house ! Another 

 favourite notion, inspired, no doubt, by a certain 

 sensational type of article in the fiction magazines, 

 was that of rays charged in some wav with elec- 

 tricity, or some other mysterious agency, and there- 

 fore intensely destructive. 



But there was a residuum of valuable inventions 

 which fully justified the existence of the Department. 

 These were recommended for further consideration 

 by the various departments of the Services or bv 

 General Headquarters. It by no means followed that 

 all that came to this stage received careful further 

 consideration. Everybody was very hard worked, and 

 many were overdriven. And it was by no means 

 certain that when important approved appliances were 

 sent to G.H.Q. a thoroughly well-informed and 

 capable officer would in all cases have the dutv of 

 explaining and showing their action. The absence of 

 such an officer, I am sure, often resulted in delay 

 and serious error, and, I fear, also in the rejection 

 of what was in itself exceedingly good, but was not 

 understood. People who knew nothing about the 

 matter took charge, and ordered things to be done 

 which brought disaster to the apparatus. I know of 

 one very important machine which was ruined, with 

 much resulting delay. .\ brigadier or major-general 

 with a confidence born of blank ignorance ordered a 

 motor-generator to be put on town electric mains, 

 and, of course, burnt it out. 



Then, again, we were told that G.H.Q. did not 

 want this or that, and here, as in all human affairs, 

 mental inertia certainly played a considerable part. 

 The willingness, however, of some Departments to 

 adopt at once a device captured from the enemv was 

 pathetic. Often quite clumsy and relatively inferior 

 contrivances were adopted in the midst of hesitation 

 about our own. Anything German of this sort some 

 people assumed must be good — a foolish idea, the 

 result of want of confidence, often well founded, I 

 am afraid, in their own judgment. It is legitimate to 

 copy from the enemy, and in several important things 

 we have not been slow to do so. 



The delays .that occurred were to some of us at 

 home, who were anxiously dealing with all kinds of 

 contrivances, exceedingly exasperating. Some were 

 undoubtedly unavoidable, but others were, as I have 

 indicated, far otherwise. Deficiency in scientific 

 education was the cause. It is to enforce the need 

 for such education that I refer to such matters at 

 all. The "playing fields of Eton " are all very well. 

 I for one do not sooff at what the old saying stands 

 for, but scientific laboratories and good intelligent 

 work in them are indispensable. A man who directs 

 in whole or in part a great machine must know 

 something of its structure and capabilities.- 



I feel bound to allude to another aspect of the 

 inventions business which, to mv mind, was very 

 serious. In doinf so, however, I wish it to be clearly 

 understood that I am criticising a system, and in no 



NO. 2603, VOL. 104] 



way here referring to particular individuals con- 

 cerned in its administration. Various inventions 

 which had passed satisfactorily the first examinations 

 by responsible judges were submitted to technical 

 departments at home to he subjected to practical 

 tests. These inventions were frequently proposed solu- 

 tions of problems on which technical officers, of the 

 departments required to conduct the tests, had long 

 been engaged. It was natural, indeed inevitable, that 

 some of these ofiicers should have come to regard the 

 solving of these problems as their own special job, 

 and so did not much welcome the coming of the out- 

 side inventor. Then, no doubt, they often felt that 

 they were just on the point of arriving at a solution 

 — a feeling that certainly could not facilitate the avoid- 

 ance of delay. It was manifestly most unfair to ask 

 them to judge the work of the outside inventor, or 

 to place in their hands details of his proposals, for 

 exactly the same reason which in civil life restrains 

 a man from acting as a juror in a case in which he 

 is personally interested. Nobody of good sense feels 

 offended when attention is directed to such a rule in 

 practice. 



Thus I have no hesitation in expressing the opinion 

 that a testing board of practical, well-qualified 

 physicists and other experts, with a properly qualified 

 staff, should be formed for the purpose of carrying 

 out all tests of inventions. No insuperable difficultv 

 would, I believe, be experienced in forming such^a 

 board. It should be formed carefully, not by more 

 or less casual nomination of one another bv a few 

 persons. Expert knowledge of a subject should be a 

 necessary qualification; the so-called "open mind" 

 of the much-lauded but. untrained practical man is 

 not worth having. But on that board neither inside 

 nor outside inventors of the same kind of appliances 

 should have any place, though, of course, consultation 

 with the author of an invention under test would be 

 absolutely necessary. ."Xlso those actually carrying out 

 the tests and those collating the results should not 

 be men in any way in the employment of, or under 

 the supervision of, inventors, whether "outside" or 

 "inside." It is imperative in the interests of the 

 country that delay in such matters should be avoided, 

 and that all such work should be done without fear 

 or favour. 



The value of university and college men trained in 

 science has been thoroughly proved in the Artillery, 

 the Engineers,' and in their offshoots, the Special 

 Sound-ranging and Survev Corps, though its recogni- 

 tion bv the authorities of Whitehall has been scanty 

 and grudging. Some of the old-fashioned generals 

 and staff officers could not be got to see the use of 

 men who had not been trained to field exercises bv a 

 long course of drill. What is the good of officers, 

 thev said, who are not skilled leaders of men ? This 

 is the old crude idea again of destroying Germans 

 with rifles, bayonets, and hand-grenades. The falsity 

 of these antiquated notions has now, I believe, been 

 amply demonstrated. 



The objection to these men, however, lies a good 

 deal deeper. Even those scientifically educated officers 

 who came into the new armies when thev were 

 formed, and were trained by the service of years of 

 warfare superadded to the initial course of drill, have 

 been demobilised in a nearly wholesale manner, with- 

 out the least regard to even very exceptional qualifica- 

 tions. Many of these were, it seems to me, the verv 

 men who ought, above all, to have been retained 

 in the Service. Now (though, as I write, im- 

 proved regulations are being issued) thev are to 

 a .rtreat extent to be replaced bv the public school- 

 C!/n;-Sandhurst voung gentlemen, who, it appears, 

 are the " pukka " officers par excellence. 



