August 9, 1894J 



NA TURE 



ODO 



<o speak out ; and I can conceive no more fitting oppor- 

 tunity than the present for pointing out some of the causes that 

 appear to hinder our growth. Let no one think I wish to dis- 

 parage the University. I should be the last person to do so. I 

 •owe to my old college the opportunity, the help, and the 

 example which made me a chemist, and gave me an interest in 

 Jife. I only wish to see more general the advantages it was my 

 luck to meet with in Christ Church. 



Chemistry in modern Oxford is accorded a place side by side 

 with older studies. Xo one can complain that scholarships are 

 not ofTered broadcast, that money has not been freely given for 

 laboratories ; and yet I think the student does not feel around 

 him the atmosphere in which an experimental science should be 

 ■cultivated. We see Chemistry endowed and extended, we do 

 not see it respected by the bulk of students and of learned men. 

 In my undergraduate days a rhyme was current here (I think it 

 was coined in Cambridge — the Parnassus of parodies) expressing 

 views which were undoubtedly held concerning the claims of 

 -chemistry .as a subject for a degree. One verse ran — it was 

 from the Lamentation of a would-be Bachelor — 



" I thought to pass some time before, bat here, alas, I am. 

 Having managed to be plucked in every classical exam. 

 I cannot get up Plato, so my reverend tutor thinks 

 I had better take up Chemistry, which is commonly called ' Stinks.' " 



I do not quarrel with the versifier (except as a poet), I do not 

 even quarrel with the reverend tutor, whose opinion of us is 

 •obviously small, because I do not think myself that Chemistry 

 as it is taught is a very good subject for a degree. Still less is 

 it a subject which we should allow to monopolise the schoolboys' 

 time. While holding strongly that the elements of Physics and 

 ■Chemistry form a necessary part of a liberal education, I believe 

 we have made two mistakes with regard to the teaching of 

 science. We have by our science scholarships encouraged too 

 early specialisation at school ; we have overburdened our 

 undergraduates here with a multitude of facts they cannot 

 retain. A boy specialises for two years at school ; he learns 

 ■\ prodigious array of facts from the latest text-book, and 

 il^o acquires some skill in the art of quickly reproducing 

 .\ liat he has learnt. He wins a science scholarship. We then 

 III! him he must go back to, or begin, the study of the 

 classical languages we look on as essential for our degrees. By 

 .^ certain time he must reach a certain (rather low) standard, or 

 his scholarship lapses. He learns that it is advisable to get 

 assistance from those who have made a special study of prepar- 

 ing candidates for pass examinations. He crams ; or he goes 

 to a crammer and is crammed. Let us suppose, as is usually 

 I the case, that the obstacle is Greek. I will not deny that the 

 ■standard of Greek demanded may imply some important dis- 

 cipline at school, and some real culture of the mind, provided 

 the instruction given is on wholesome lines and forms part of a 

 liberal course. Got up in a hurry as it too often is, solely with 

 the object of passing, it means time and effort wasted and worse 

 than wasted. It is of no value in itself, for it is forgotten in less 

 :tne than it took to acquire ; and it gives the student the first 



inicious taste of that superficiality and false knowledge it 

 ■.ln;uld be our special aim to remove. Is it not desirable that 

 scholarships should be the reward of progress and ability in 

 •Che general subjects of school education among which the 

 elements of science should have a place ? The Orightest and 

 most persevering boys would come to the University, and there 

 make choice of the special course they wished to pursue. 



My second complamt is that we teach too many facts. They 

 ■are not all iniporlanf. After three or four years' steady accu- 

 mulation our men go into the schools walking dictionaries of 

 chemistry. I'arents not unnaturally think that their sons, after 

 four years of college training, should be fit to take responsible 

 places wherever chemists are in demand. But manufacturers, 

 •as a rule, do not care for University graduates. I cannot blame 

 them. We cannot guarantee that the men we send out with 

 honours in C'hemistry can attack a new problem, can work out 

 new processes, can prepare new dyes. German manufacturers, 

 on the other hand, prefer a University graduate, for they have 

 ■in their degree a guarantee that the student has successfully 

 attacked some unknown problem, ami added to the store ol 

 ■knowledge. 



■ The influence of science on the nation's industry has been 

 ■recognised and insisted on by those who can make their voices 

 heard. The country has at length awakened to the fact that 

 something is wanting, and cries out for Technical Instruction. 

 iX is not afraid of spending money : indeed, many well-meaning 



NO. 1293, VOL. 50] 



bodies are spending — and in some cases I fear, wasting^money 

 with a prodigal hand. And what, after all, is the great need ? 

 .Speaking for the subject I know best, I say unhesitatingly that 

 we want scientific chemists who can and will make discoveries ; 

 we want men trained, not only in what has been done, but 

 taught how to set about winning new knowledge. The 

 Universities, I urge, should te.ach the art of research. This is 

 what is wanted, and this, as all experience shows, is what the 

 Universities can do better than anyone else. And no exorbitant 

 amount of time need be demanded for this purpose. If the 

 student has learnt the elements of science at school, three years 

 at most should suffice for the preliminary degree course. The 

 graduate, armed with the necessary manipulative skill, 

 would then start research work under proper guidance as 

 the second and more valuable portion of his University 

 training. And here the new research degree (by whatever 

 name it may be called) may give us most valuable help. 

 I hope that serious work will be demanded for it, and 

 that the research course will become the recognised avenue to 

 science fellowships and lectureships in the University. Two 

 years would show what the man had in him. In that time 

 either he would have proved himself no chemist, or he would 

 have made some useful advance in our knowledge, and would 

 have secured a testimonial of fitness such as no examination 

 could confer. Five years in all — the minimum time now laid 

 down for a medical qualification — would surely be not too much 

 to ask for the chemist's training. 



No extra expense need be incurred to carry out this plan. 

 Some of the college scholarships at present offered on entrance 

 might be reserved for research studentships on graduation. 

 These studentships should be the reward of the successful under- 

 graduate career. On this point, which I have urged for many 

 years, I am glad to find myself in entire agreement with the 

 President of the Chemical .Society. At Owens College our 

 most successful endowment in chemistry h.is been the Dalton 

 Scholarship, awarded for a research done in the College labora- 

 tories. In the Victoria University we have lately founded 

 scholarships for the encouragement of research, which are 

 awarded on the results of the final examination in the several 

 Honours Schools. The winners are entitled to hold their 

 scholarships at any university at home or abroad where they 

 can continue iheir special studies. 



I plead, then, for greater encour.agement of chemical research 

 in Oxford. Make it part of the normal course of training for 

 everyone who wishes to be a chemist in fact as well as in name. 

 Consider, not only the country's need, but thev.alue of research 

 itself as a mental training, as stimulating and strengihening the 

 activities, as creating that sense of devotion and discipleship 

 which becomes the tradition of every great school of learning. 



Lastly, let us own that we ourselves — the teachers here — have 

 been perhaps too critical, too much afraid of making mistakes, 

 forgetting that the witty American's remark — that he who 

 never makes mistakes never makes anything — has a far wider 

 application in science than in politics. Only by practice and 

 drill can we learn to collect our strength and swing it with pre- 

 cision into acts. Without that training, no matter how much 

 faculty of seeing a man has " the step from knowing to doing " 

 is rarely taken. There is nothing, I believe, in Oxford anta- 

 gonistic to our cause. The genius of the place has not declared 

 against scientific research ; and if it be a true saying that men 

 here imbibe a liberal education from the very air breathed by 

 Locke and Berkeley, surely we also may draw scientific inspira- 

 tion from this air, not only breathed, but first explained by Boyle 

 and Hooke and Mayow. 



SECTION C. 



Geology. 



Opening Address bv L. Fletcher, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S., 

 President of the Section. 



With an anxious desire to conform to the traditions of the 

 past, I have sought in the Reports of the Association for 

 guidance in my present difficulty ; and have remarked that it is 

 customary for a president, on first taking the chair, to express 

 a deep sense of unworthiness for the position to which he has 

 been called. My first duty, then, seemed a simple .and obvious 

 one ; till I further remarked, to my dismay, that the more dis- 

 tinguished the president the more humble h.ave been the terms 

 in which such expression has been nvade. Hence I feel that it 



