36 PROFESSORS AND PRACTICAL MEN 



happened to hear of it ? I think so. 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 its source. 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. 



