34 PROFESSORS AND PRACTICAL MEN 



the direction of our university as a whole, and of these special 

 departments in particular, the active co-operation of men 

 of business and of representatives of the particular industries 

 concerned. 



I do not look upon these steps as a gracious concession, still 

 less as a sordid opportunism. I believe that they secure the 

 best interests of thought as surely as I hope they will serve 

 the most immediate needs of work. 



No one who has studied the history of science can be 

 ignorant of the fact that science has its roots and has gained 

 its greatest impulse in the practical avocations of mankind. 

 Chemistry was born in foundries and pharmacies, and nearly 

 every great advance can be traced to some industrial impulse. 

 I suppose the greatest achievements in chemistry were those 

 of Lavoisier. How did they arise? I believe I am not 

 wrong in saying that it was in the preparation of his prize 

 essay on the best mode of lighting the streets of Paris. 

 Beginning with a consideration of the best form of lamp, 

 the most effective form of reflector, the most suitable shape 

 of oil-container, Lavoisier passed to the study of combustion, 

 and, finding organic things like oil and tallow too complex 

 to reveal the fundamental nature of the process, he betook 

 himself to simpler things like phosphorus and zinc ; and so 

 he was led to the train of discoveries which constitute the 

 foundations of modern chemistry. * It was ', as M. le Chatelier 

 has said, ' this constant preoccupation with practical questions 

 that enabled Lavoisier to escape without effort from the fictions 

 and conventions amid which contemporary chemists were 

 merely marking-time/ 



I have given you but one of innumerable examples to 

 illustrate a truth that we who profess science should never 

 be permitted to forget, and to assure you that I regard the 

 close association of universities with the .business world as 

 of enormous advantage to the universities. We have in this, 



