SCIENCE AND THE WAR 109 



difference to the practice of research in connection 

 with their processes and products." I remember 

 talking some twenty-five years ago to a highly 

 educated young student of Birmingham who was 

 of German parentage though of English birth. 

 He had just taken the degree of Doctor of Science 

 in London University, and was on the eve of 

 abandoning the adopted country of his parents 

 for a position in the research laboratories of the 

 Badische company, where he would be one among 

 a number of chemists, running into hundreds, 

 all engaged in research on gas-tar products. At 

 that moment the great Birmingham gas-company 

 was employing the services of one trained chemist. 

 Such was and is the neglect of science by 

 business men. Could it have been otherwise, 

 considering their bringing up ? Let me again 

 be reminiscent. I suppose the public school in 

 England (not a Catholic school, for I was then 

 a Protestant) at which I pursued what were 

 described as studies did not in any very marked 

 degree differ from its sister schools throughout 

 the country. How was science encouraged there ? 

 One hour per week, exactly one-fifth of the time 

 devoted weekly, not to Greek and Latin (that 

 would have been almost sacrilegious), but to the 

 writing of Greek and Latin prose and alleged 

 Greek and Latin verse that was the amount of 

 time which was devoted to what was called 

 science. I suppose I had an ingrained vocation 

 for science, for it was the only subject, except 

 English composition, in which I ever felt interest 

 at school. If the vocation had not been there, 



