540 



NATURE 



[June 30, 1910 



alive." The modern university broke away from this 

 entirely, its ideal being research, with absolute freedom. 

 Paulsen, in his well-known work on " German Educa- 

 tion," says: — "Scientific research cannot possibly be 

 regulated by decrees of the ruling powers, but can only 

 thrive in full liberty : to find aims and objects, means and 

 ways of speculation and research, must be left to individual 

 initiative." The teaching of sufificient preparatory know- 

 ledge, chiefly in languages and mathematics, was left to 

 the secondary schools, these having long attained to a 

 very high degree of efficiency in Germany. Thus the 

 modern university became a research university, the object 

 of study, according to Paulsen, being " the ability to think 

 scientifically, that is to say, the ability to comprehend and 

 test scientific researches, and to conduct them ; and in the 

 second place, to solve practical problems on the basis of 

 scientific knowledge." This ideal, which includes both the 

 pursuit of pure science and its technical applications, was 

 realised to the greatest degree in the philosophical faculty. 

 The results were sometimes great and sometimes small, 

 but were always honest attempts to do something toward 

 the advancement of knowledge. 



To be successful in research it is necessary to confine 

 the attention to special departments of the subject of study, 

 to specialise, and to become acquainted, at first hand, with 

 the work of previous investigators, their difficulties and 

 failures, as well as their final results, obtained in the 

 original records published in the scientific journals of their 

 respective countries — not from inhuman text-books or 

 mechanical indexes. Every large research laboratory 

 consists of a little army of specialists who consult one 

 another in the subjects in which each has special know- 

 ledge, just as in ordinary life one consults the physician, 

 the lawyer, or the engineer. Next, success depends largely 

 on imaginative capacity. This should be strengthened by 

 every available means. Many find strength in poetry, 

 fairy-tales, the Arabian Nights, in music — for by the scien- 

 tific method, conjectures, hypotheses, have to be invented, 

 to be subjected to rigorous experimental or other testing, 

 and to be abandoned, modified, or established as they are 

 found to conform, or not to conform, to nature, .'\gain, 

 everything should be done to awaken and to cultivate 

 natural curiosity respecting the unknown : the leader, the 

 teacher, should never miss an opportunity to direct atten- 

 tion to possible new developments. Prof. Appell, of the 

 Sorbonne, recently defining a man of science, said he did 

 not mean " the man who knows," but the man who 

 " combines with his knowledge scientific activity, that is 

 to say, a curiosity always alert, indefatigable patience, 

 and, above all, initiative and again initiative." 



In the foregoing paragraphs I have endeavoured to 

 indicate the conditions essential to the success of research, 

 to the success of a research university — conditions from 

 without, contributed by the community, by the State, a 

 suitable environment ; and conditions from within, properly 

 trained leaders and students to follow them, afterwards to 

 carry on the leadership. Thus, as to the first condition, 

 Wilhelm von Humboldt in a State paper, in 1810, says : — 

 " The State should not treat the universities as if they 

 were higher classical schools or schools of special sciences. 

 On the whole, the State should not look to them at all 

 for an3'thing that directly concerns its own interests, but 

 should rather cherish a conviction that, in fulfilling their 

 real destination, they will not only serve its own purposes, 

 but serve them on an infinitely higher plane, commanding 

 a much wider field of operation, and affording room to set 

 in motion much more efficient springs and forces than are 

 at the disposal of the State itself." As to the second con- 

 dition, in the selection of leaders, of professors, Paulsen 

 tells us that " proficiency in some branch of scientific re- 

 search was regarded from the first as the principal require- 

 ment, aptitude for teaching coming into consideration only 

 in the second place, although it would be more correct to 

 say it was taken for granted that a prominent scholar 

 who had distinguished himself in scientific research was 

 always likely to make the best and — in the last and 

 highest resort — the' most efficient teacher." Professors and 

 students gathered in the Prussian capital, the work of the 

 laboratories and the Sem'inare began — men like Fichte, 

 Schleiermacher, and Wolf ; Mitscherlich and Rose ; later, 

 Hegel, Bockh, the brothers Grimm, Scherer, Bopp, 



Niebuhr, Ranke, Savigny, and Eichhorn ; Momms< i , 

 Virchow, Helmholtz, and Hofmann, and so many others, 

 did therein their life's work. The work of these men, 

 their glorious example, is felt to-day, either directly or 

 through their students, throughout the world of learning. 

 There is scarcely a university or college now in existence 

 in whrch, not one, but many workers look back directly 

 or indirectly to Friedrich Wilhelm's university in Berlin 

 with gratitude and with affection. 



To trace the' effects of the research university, which 

 after Berlin and Bonn became universal throughout German 

 countries, though of absorbing interest, cannot be under- 

 taken here, even in outline ; but the result in two dii" - 

 tions must not be passed over altogether — first, the effcxi 

 of habits of research on our general views of education ; 

 and, secondly, the extraordinary rise of chemistry in the 

 nineteenth century, directly ascribable to it. As to the 

 first point, it has gradually come to be recognised that 

 work in research has an educational value to the worker, 

 quite apart from its value in other respects, as awakening 

 and strengthening what is noblest and of greatest utility 

 in man, which places it at least on an equality with the 

 older studies peculiar to the medieval university. The 

 thoughtful student can hardly enter a research laboratory 

 without feeling that he is entering a place sacred to the 

 wondrous mysteries of nature — a place where, when he 

 has attained the requisite knowledge and dexterity, he will 

 be permitted to put questions to nature, and, it may be, 

 see something of those mysteries revealed. An explorer 

 famous for his achievements will take him by the hand, 

 and will in the friendliest manner direct him, will tell 

 him what to do and where to go. He will lead him at 

 first along some short and well-worn paths ; he will then 

 allow him to venture on longer ones, but still wora with 

 footsteps, which he will recognise as those of former 

 students, who subsequently became great explorers ; then 

 little by little he will be encouraged to go out alone into 

 paths less known, until in time he will wish to push on, 

 to extend his wanderings into unknown regions, a little 

 at first, but afterwards more and more, to seek his own 

 way, into regions of wondrous and, to his imagination, 

 of unlimited possibilities ; and the reception by the old 

 explorer and the others, on his return, is a pleasure so 

 exquisite tha1f it exceeds any possible description. In most 

 of this wandering he is associated with his fellow-explorers, 

 who have like aims and like aspirations — men whom to 

 know and to work with is the highest form of education. 



The second point to which I wish to allude, as a direct 

 result of the establishment of research universities, is the 

 great development of the science of chemistry during the 

 last century. Just before and about the beginning of the 

 century there were three centres of notable activity in 

 chemistry; one was in England, another in France, and 

 the third in Sweden. The work of these served to lay the 

 foundations of the science : in England, by Priestley, 

 Black, Cavendish, Dalton, and Davy; in France, by 

 Lavoisier, Berthelot, and Gay-Lussac ; in Sweden, by 

 Bergmann, Scheele, and Berzel'ius. With some important 

 exceptions, the work of these chemists was isolated ; they 

 did not train students or found schools of after-workers ; 

 they owed little, almost nothing, to universities — the re- 

 search university had not arisen. But the _ exceptional 

 students were indeed important — men of genius who in 

 any circumstances would have forced their way : Faraday, 

 the student of Davy ; Wohler, the student of Berzelius ; 

 and Dumas, and, above all, Liebig, the students of Gay- 

 Lussac. Dumas in Paris and Faraday in London worked 

 practically by themselves, and their great discoveries are 

 well known : they were generals of the highest genius, but 

 without an array ; but it was reserved for Liebig. and his 

 great collaborator Wohler, who both returned to Germany, 

 there, with the splendid environment of the new research 

 universities, to be instrumental in founding organic 

 chemistry, and raising the science generally to the high 

 position ^it attained. A further example of the indebted- 

 ness of the world to the brothers von Humboldt is the 

 interesting fact that Alexander von Humboldt was the 

 discoverer of both the French Dumas and the German 

 Liebig : his influence it was that induced Dumas to leave 

 the apothecary's shop in Geneva to go to Paris to Gay- 

 Lussac ; and it was by his interest, too, that the German 



NO. 2122, VOL. 83] 



