36 PROFESSORS AND PRACTICAL MEN 
happened to hear of it? I thinkso. In a business like 
ours, it transcends the powers of any accountant to effect 
an audit; you would need a whole secret service of educated 
spies. You, individually, may give us a thousand pounds 
in the hope of a return; but you, individually, may get 
nothing in return—at least in this world—or you may get 
a return that you cannot trace to itssource. No; the essence 
of university finance is collective investment. It is to some 
considerable extent selective for a locality, and may be made 
equally so for a single group of interests or industries, But 
looking at a university as a whole, it is national or even 
international in its financial ramifications. 
If I and many of my colleagues in this and other univer- 
sities are of some value to this country, I would have you 
remember that the cost of our education has, to a quite 
considerable extent, fallen upon the German taxpayer. 
If I say that the students who have gone from our Chemical 
Department are collectively earning half a million a year for 
the firms who employ them, no one can contradict me; and 
I am tempted to affirm it positively, as a counterblast to those 
hasty financiers who look at our accounts and raise their 
voice in lamentation over the capital we lay down, without 
ever stopping to think of the unrecorded dividends that 
accrue. 
I will take another thing. I think a good business man, 
while anxious to progress and branch out, while ready to 
take risks and go somewhat afield for promising expedients 
or appliances, is usually very careful not to lose sight of the 
main current of his affairs—expecting to profit by deliberate, 
methodical plans rather than by totally unexpected accidents. 
The same is doubtless true within the pursuit of science itself 
where the object is simply to elucidate a given problem. 
But when it comes to the contact between science and 
industry, an entirely new factor appears. 
