German Science^ 



NO one can have lived in modern England without hearing 

 continually of the eminence of Germany in science. It 

 is generally supposed that the Germans are much more 

 scientific than we are ; that they believe in science more, 

 study it more, pay for it more ; that they bring it more into 

 the affairs of life ; that they have profited greatly by its 

 application to industry. These beliefs are well founded and 

 just. 



Other opinions that are hardly less current on the subject 

 are not true. For example, I have met frequently with the 

 opinions that the leading men of science in Germany far 

 outdistance our own in ability and achievement, that the 

 working men of Germany are specially equipped with 

 scientific knowledge, that the German school curriculum 

 is highly scientific. None of these things is true. 



It will be my purpose this afternoon to try and give you 

 an idea of the position which science really does occupy 

 in Germany and of the services which its cultivation has 

 rendered to the nation, and I shall briefly describe the state 

 of things in this country, venturing at the same time a little 

 into the region of criticism. 



Any competence that I have to speak to you about German 

 science must be in relation to chemistry, but happily that 

 science is the one in which, perhaps, they are most eminent, 

 the one to which they owe in a special degree material 



1 Anaddress to the Workers' Educational Association, delivered in Leeds 

 July 1913. 



