PROFESSORS AND PRACTICAL MEN 37 



The discovery of the atmospheric burner, was not an 

 accident. It arose from the desire of Bunsen to have a gas- 

 flame that would not smoke his flasks ; and it was contrived 

 by a stroke of genius. But what an accident for you that 

 a man of genius should want a smokeless flame ! When I 

 was a student in Bunsen's laboratory, there came to it Carl 

 Auer von Welsbach, in the spirit of.an unalloyed philosopher, 

 eager to solve some problems about the group of chemical 

 elements that seemed, of all, the most remote from any daily 

 human needs. He noticed the remarkable glow of the mixed 

 oxides when a flame impinged upon them. And so he begat 

 the gas-mantle. Again I say, no accident for him, but again 

 what an accident for you, that a man of genius should want to 

 investigate the mystery of rare earths ! 



I need riot ask you where the gas industry would be to-day 

 without these windfalls from the tree of scientific knowledge, 

 whose branches, be it remembered, wave most vigorously in 

 the upper air. Instead of in this assembly of comfortable 

 gentlemen, enduring so kindly the garrulity of a professor, 

 you might perchance have been found in Trafalgar Square, 

 listening under the banner of the unemployed to more moving 

 eloquence. 



By what definite planning are you to get discoveries of this 

 kind made ? The answer is, I think, by treasuring your men 

 of genius, and letting them work in the light of their genius. 

 Surely the time has gone by to wonder whether true scientific 

 work, carried on in the spirit of a philosopher, by a man of 

 genius with his feet upon the earth, subserves the material 

 needs of humanity. Who is there that will dare to set his 

 finger on any patch of new natural knowledge and say : ' This 

 may be edifying, but it is nothing to us ' ? 



When, therefore, you seek to bring science into your service, 

 beware of unduly fettering the minds and discriminating the 

 topics. This seems to be the hardest lesson of all for the 



