July 13, 1916] 



NATURE 



413 



in the interests of teaching, which is the primarj- 

 business of a university, such devotion to one problem 

 is undesirable, as tending to one-sidedness. 



There are also difficulties in obtaining the co-opera- 

 tion of manufacturers with universities and in the 

 application of university work to industry, which I 

 see no hope whatever of overcoming ; the universities 

 do not understand the requirements of the manufac- 

 turer, and the manufacturer distrusts, because he does 

 not understand, the language of the professor. More- 

 over, it is quite essential that any investigator who has 

 worked out a new process or material should be able 

 to apply Jriis work on a semi-manufacturing scale, so 

 that it can be transferred to the factory by skilled 

 men who have already met the general difficulties 

 which would be encountered in facton,- application. 

 This development on a semi-manufacturing scale is, 

 indeed, one of the most difficult parts of a research 

 resulting in a new product, and the importance of it 

 is shown by the fact that all the large industrial 

 research laboratories, however concerned thev may be 

 with the theory of the subject, have, as parts of the 

 laborator}', and under the direction of the research 

 staff, experimental manufacturing plants which dupli- 

 cate many of the processes employed in the factory 

 itself. 



All these arguments tend to show that an industrial 

 research laboratory must necessarily be of considerable 

 size, but this requirement is much accentuated by 

 another consideration altogether. 



Except in a few branches of pure science small 

 research laboratories are relatively inefficient, in the 

 technical sense of the term — that is, they require more 

 time and cost more money for the solution of a given 

 problem. 



When considering this subject it is necessary first 

 to dismiss completely from the mind the idea that any 

 appreciable number of research laboratories can be 

 staffed by geniuses. If a genius can be obtained for 

 a given industrial research, that is, of course, an over- 

 whelming advantage which may outweigh any dis- 

 advantages, but we have no right to assume that w-e 

 can obtain geniuses ; all we have a right to assume 

 is that we can obtain, at a fair rate of recompense, 

 v.ell-trained. average men having a taste for research 

 and a certain ability for investigation. The problem, 

 then, is, how can we obtain the greatest yield from a 

 given number of men in a given time? Investigation 

 of the subject shows that the yield per man increases 

 very greatly as the number of men who can co-operate 

 together is increased. The problems of industrial re- 

 search are not often of the type which can be best 

 tackled by one or two individual thinkers, and they 

 rarely involve directly abstract points of theory, but 

 they continually involve difficult technical and mechan- 

 ical operations, and most of the delays in research 

 work arise because the workers engaged on the subject 

 do not know how to do some specific operation. In 

 my own experience, I have seen a good man stick for 

 six months at an investigation because he did not know 

 and could not find out how- to measure a conductivity 

 with a precision higher than one part in a thousand, 

 a point which was finally found to be perfectlv well 

 known to several scientific workers in the country. 

 .Again, it took another good man three months to 

 learn how to cut a special form of section, but. having 

 learned the, trick, he can now cut sections for all the 

 workers in the laboratory with no delav whatever. 



In this connection the advantage of permanent set- 

 ups of apparatus may be pointed out. Among a large 

 number of chemists some one will continuallv be want- 

 ing to photograph an ultra-violet absorption spectrum 

 or to take a photomicrograph, and if the apparatus 

 for these purposes is erected and in charge of a com- 

 petent man who understands its use, the work can be 

 NO. 2437, VOL. 97] 



done without any delay at all, the photography of the 

 absorption spectrum of an organic liquid by a man 

 who is used to the work taking only an hour ; but if 

 this point is vital to the research, and the chemist 



! is quite unacquainted with the technique of the sub- 



! ject and has no apparatus available, it may easily 

 take him six months to find out what has been done 



I on absorption spectra, to buy and erect the apparatus 



1 and become skilled in its working. 



I From these causes, then, the efficiency of a labora- 

 tory increases verj' greatly with its size, provided that 

 there are good arrangements for co-operation between 

 the different workers of the laboratory, so that they 



I are kept informed of each other's problems. 



When considering the efficiency of research work 



i it must be remembered that the efficiency is necessarily 

 extremely low, since it is ver\- rarely possible to arrange 

 any research so that it will directly proceed to the 

 end required. 



(J^o he concluded.) 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Birmingham. — Dr. O. F. Hudson has resigned his 

 post as lecturer and instructor in assaying and special 

 lecturer in metallography in order to take up duties 

 as assistant investigator to the Corrosion Committee 

 of the Institute of Metals. 



The degree of Doctor of Science has been awarded 

 to the following : Elizabeth .A^cton (botany), Henry 

 Briggs (mining), George William Clough and Albert 

 Parker (chemistry). 



Leeds. — On the occasion of Degree Day on July i 

 the vice-chancellor (Dr. M. E. Sadler) in the course 

 of an address reviewed the position of the university, 

 with special reference to the war. Of nearly fourteen 

 hundred associated with the university who are on 

 active service, fifty-one had received military distinc- 

 tion. The war has found the university able and 

 ready to give the nation unforeseen and many-sided 

 service, and the long vacation is little more than a 

 name for those in the universitv w-ho are doing 

 scientific or administrative work in connection with 

 the war. The war. Dr. Sadler remarked, has already 

 enriched the university with a deepened tradition of 

 fellowship in public service. In the years to come it 

 will be called upon to prove the power of patient but 

 imaginative investigation, of trained judgment, and of 

 unjealous and patriotic gnergy in helping forward 

 whatever will impart a finer quality to the social and 

 economic conditions of the national life. Grateful 

 mention was made of the recent benefaction of Sir 

 James Roberts for the endowment of a chair of 

 Russian language and literature — an act of inter- 

 national significance. As impwrtant and opportune 

 would be the foundation of a professorship of Spanish 

 language and literature. 



Alluding to the future of the universities. Dr. Sadler 

 said, whilst they must continue to work in intimate 

 co-operation with the great local authorities and the 

 Gk)vernment, it must never be forgotten that the living 

 power of their work will depend on their continuing 

 free from mistaken, how^ever well-meant, kinds of 

 external interference. Germany has failed, in spite 

 of her brilliant endowment of knowledge, to keep 

 unsullied in her universities freedom of moral judg- 

 ment in respect of some vital questions of dut\- to 

 mankind and to the State. She has gradually and 

 half-con sciously undermined, by subtle pressure of 

 State control and by inducements of official distinc- 

 tions, independence of moral and political judgment 

 in some of the teachers through whom that higher 

 education is given. This should be a warning to us. 



