June 30, 19 10] 



NATURE 



541 



student Liebig was brought to the notice of the great 

 ; Frenchman. At Giessen Liebig founded the first chemical 

 laboratory — indeed, the first science laboratory — open 

 regularly to students ; there, and afterwards at Munich, 

 he conducted his great researches, and trained the research 

 students who continued his work, and who themselves or 

 their successors still continue it in all countries. With- 

 out the research university all this would have been 

 impossible. 



A few words must be devoted to Napoleon's experi- 

 ment in founding a university centralised in Paris, and 

 doing no teaching or research of any kind. One of the 

 effects of the Revolution was the abolition in 1793 by the 

 Convention of the ancient universities of France. The 

 effect on education was disastrous. To remedy this. 

 Napoleon, in 1S06 and 1808, determined to establish an 

 examination university for the whole of France ; and this 

 university, once established, continued until our own time, 

 and has only recently been abandoned in favour of the 

 German type. The University of London, foimded in 1825, 

 was of the Napoleonic tj'pe, for well-known reasons ; and 

 the Royal University of Ireland followed on the same lines. 

 All this has now happily been changed, in Paris, in 

 London, and in Dublin ; and they must be few who would 

 urge to-day that education by examination can lead to 

 anything but failure to literature, to science, or to the 

 State. 



Realising with Carlyle that " the end of man is an 

 action, not a thought," the research university has always 

 recognised that the end of learning is not itself, but the 

 benefit that it confers on its own votaries and on man- 

 kind. Thus Liebig was alert to the applications of his 

 scientific discoveries and to the possession on the part of 

 his students of the special talent necessary, the aptitude, 

 for making such applications efliciently. Liebig 's first 

 inquiry, on fulminates, led to the modern manufacture of 

 those substances and generally to the explosives industry. 

 Similarly other researches either originated or improved 

 almost every industry of the last century into which 

 chemistry enters. His concern throughout his life for the 

 requirements of medicine, of agriculture, of our food 

 supply, and the enormous advances to which his dis- 

 coveries led, need not be recapitulated. Hofmann himself, 

 who perhaps more than any of Liebig's students realised 

 bis master's ideal, and became, after Liebig, the greatest 

 scientific teacher of bis day, came to England in 1845 to 

 take charge of the newly founded Royal College of 

 Chemistry. For twenty years he worked in London with 

 well-known results to science and manufactures and to 

 the training of research chemists and teachers. It was 

 the time of ^he Great Exhibition, and it seemed as if 

 chemistry was transferred to England. But the environ- 

 ment was not congenial. We had no research universities. 

 Humboldt's universities were too great an attraction. 

 Palaces for research were built for him, first at Bonn and 

 finally at Berlin ; and, naturally, the great research teacher 

 re-crossed the Rhine. The industries which otherwise 

 might have been ours followed him, and, directly or in- 

 directly, the great rise of chemical industries in Germany, 

 of which we hear so much at the present day, is to be 

 ascribed largely to the work of this wonderful man and 

 the surroundings of the research university. Hofmann 

 continued the practice of Liebig in entrusting to those of 

 his students who gave evidence of having the requisite 

 capacity the application of his scientific discoveries. At 

 least one of the large colour works in Germany was thus 

 •'"'^■rectly connected with the university laboratories in 

 'n. This was a labour of love on the part of his 

 ients ; but it led eventually to the enrichment alike of 

 master and pupil, to a degree that professors in these 

 lands can only en\-y. Thus the research university, 

 splendid as were its achievements in pure science, never 

 lost touch with technology ; and there can be no question 

 that this was to the advantage of science itself, quicken- 

 ing it by contact with the concrete conditions of real life, 

 and justifying it by a worthy object. 



But it gradually became apparent that theie was an 

 important field of research between the discoveries of pure 

 science and their actual use in manufacturing processes. 

 This was recognised as a field of work somewhat different 

 in its point of view from that of pure science, but, like 



NO. 2122, VOL. 83] 



the latter, requiring the highest degree of knowledge and 

 skill. It has been conveniently termed technical research. 

 For example, there are many more coloured compounds 

 known than dyes ; but some of these might be converted 

 into dyes if the requisite conditions could be discovered by 

 which changes could be effected in their molecular structure 

 in accordance with well-known laws. Again, the synthetic 

 formation of indigo, of the structure which chemists 

 imagine to represent its molecule, though long known as 

 a laboratory experiment, was until recently economically 

 impossible as a manufacturing operation. To overcome 

 this difficulty, with a faith akin to that of the Humboldts 

 in the success of their universities, one of the large indus- 

 trial undertakings in Germany set to work with its little 

 army of technical research chemists, and after years of 

 patient labour, and the expenditure of three-quarters of a 

 million sterling, the reward has been success. The demand 

 for this technical research work has grown in Germany as 

 it has in no other country. The large industrial under- 

 takings have their own laboratories devoted to it, and, in 

 addition, the practice has become general of retaining, at 

 substantial salaries, the interest of the university pro- 

 fessors, for the advantage of particular manufacturers. 

 German professors of chemistry are now princes indeed 

 compared with their position in the time of Liebig. But 

 all this has not been sufficient to meet the demand for 

 technical research work and for trained workers ; and there 

 has arisen a new class of high school, the technical re- 

 search university", of which that at Charlottenburg may 

 be taken as a type. These new institutions, by the 

 standard required for entrance, and by the quality of the 

 work they do, are entitled to take, and do take, rank 

 equal to the university, and they confer a doctorate in 

 engineering. 



We have now considered four types of institutions for 

 the advancement and diffusion of learning and of its appli- 

 cations to society — institutions of acknowledged university 

 rank : of the mediaeval or residential college universitv-, 

 exemplified by Oxford ; the research university, as seen at 

 Berlin ; the examination university, first known in 

 Napoleon 's University of Paris ; and the technical research 

 university, as seen at Charlottenburg. In England, where 

 numerous new universities have been established in recent 

 years, the type adopted has been a combination of the 

 German research university and the German technical re- 

 search university-, the one or the other t3rpe predominating 

 according to local needs, and the whole adapted to its 

 surroundings, particularly to the conditions of secondary 

 education. WTiatever view may be held respecting the 

 German practice of separating these two types, as adapted 

 to German conditions, it will, I think, be generally agreed 

 that, for the conditions which prevail in these islands, the 

 combination of the two in the new universities is a wise 

 arrangement. Our two new universities in Ireland are 

 also of this combined t>-pe, and are to be adapted to Irish 

 educational conditions and the needs of the country. 



Two advantages the German university has which are 

 not found in this country : the one is the Seminar, the 

 other the coordination between the secondary school and 

 the university, which relieves the university of all work 

 except research and preparation for research. In science 

 the influence of Liebig, through his students, was so great 

 that science laboratories, after the model of Giessen, have 

 become the recognised attribute of science professorships 

 throughout the world ; but the corresponding laboratories 

 for literature and philosophy are with us entirely wanting. 

 No doubt the work is done here in a less organised and 

 different way, but the institution of organised and properly 

 equipped Seminare would be an important advantage to 

 the literary, philosophical, and other departments of our 

 universities. The second advantage referred to possessed 

 by the German university is the character of the leaving 

 examination of the secondary school. It corresponds to 

 our matriculation examination, with the added knowledge 

 acquired by about two years' university study in arts, and 

 its acceptance by the university as evidence of sufficient 

 knowledge for matriculation relieves the university of that 

 most unfortunate practice, so common here, of giving the 

 student an examination as his first experience on entering. 

 The student in " Faust " W'ho said, " Zwar weiss ich viel. 

 doch mocht ich .Alles wissen," would have been surprised 



