88 THE PLACE OF SCIENCE IN 



If you want to see science on its more purely material side 

 you can take the German nation. I should like to tell you 

 about the development of science in Germany. You know, 

 no doubt, that at the present time there is no nation in the 

 world which has developed science so thoroughly, which 

 has applied it so closely to national life as Germany. And 

 this has been a very rapid achievement. At the beginning 

 of the nineteenth century Germany was not in any way 

 conspicuous in science. The development took place after 

 the first quarter of the nineteenth century had passed. But 

 since that time it has developed with marvellous rapidity 

 and has produced material results in Germany of the most 

 imposing character. It is really remarkable to read things 

 that were written of Germany so late as 1840. The great 

 Liebig, the person much more than any other who is respon- 

 sible for giving impulse to the teaching of science, in that 

 year published a paper in which he speaks in the most 

 deploring terms of the position of his own science in Prussia. 

 He says that in that time there was not a single teaching labor- 

 atory. The whole enthusiasm of the learning world was for 

 literary and classical studies. He commended science not 

 only for its own sake but for the profits which certainly came 

 through it to national life, and he remarked that 'in fifty 

 years the neglect of science would be looked back upon 

 with incredulity and a smile of pity'. Considering that 

 condition of things it is nothing less than marvellous to 

 regard- the condition of German science to-day. If we take 

 the whole range of science, physical and biological, I think 

 it can be affirmed that there is no country in the world where 

 there is so much activity, so many workers, so much State 

 endowment, and so great an output of publication. It is, I 

 should like to say, the great number of scientific men that 

 is the noteworthy feature. I do not say for a moment that 

 they are greater scientific men than those of other countries. 



