80 THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE 



where that of a man, who has achieved breadth 

 without depth, ends. He is curious, his relative 

 ignorance of other subjects than his own, and their 

 freshness to his mind, make him so, whereas the 

 other is satiated with imperfectly appreciated subjects 

 which he thinks he knows, and he becomes dull. 



I do not express myself on this matter as strongly 

 as I might, because I know that I am against a 

 tradition which in the past has paid. If I express 

 an opinion at all it is because I cannot see, in the 

 more strenuous times of the future, any chance of 

 its continuing to pay, either in Scotland or else- 

 where. The day of the amateur Jack-of-all- trades 

 and master of none whether in government and 

 administration, teaching, industry or commerce, 

 seems to be definitely terminating as each country- 

 becomes less and less a self-contained community 

 and more and more open to the competition of the 

 world. If specialists are not turned out we shall be 

 dependent upon them for the foreigner. I have no 

 great assurance, in spite of the present revulsion of 

 feeling, that ten years hence will not see our 

 industries dominated by foreign chemists again, not 

 because of any defect in the British chemist, but 

 because of the appalling ignorance on the part of his 

 employer and his total inability, engendered by his 

 training, to appreciate what is new, not as some- 

 thing to be added on and made to accommodate itself 

 to the old, but as replacing and totally expunging it. 



The bursary system is one of the most potent 

 factors in preserving the education of so many of 

 our students upon traditional lines. Intended as an 

 encouragement to picked students to come to the 

 university to continue their studies and complete 

 their preparation for life, it has become a bribe to 

 them to continue studies which otherwise would 

 attract only a few, and those mainly to whom the 



