466 
at the Royal Institution during the past hundred years is a fairly 
definite quantity in the mind of every man really conversant 
with scientific affairs. I have obtained from the books accurate 
statistics of the total expenditure on experimental inquiry and 
public demonstrations for the whole of the nineteenth century. 
The items are :— 
4 
Professors’ Salaries— Physics and Chemistry — 54,600 
Waboratory Expenditure) s.....+-.cssectssees se 24,430 
SASSIStANtS ORIALICS © nenspstn sites sssectnesemtinssirss 21,590 
Total for one hundred years ......... “100,620 
In addition, the members and friends of the Institution have 
contributed to a fund for exceptional expenditure for Experi- 
mental Research the sum of 9580/7. It should also be mentioned 
that a Civil List Pension of 300/. was granted to Faraday in 
1853, and was continued during twenty-seven years of active 
work and five years of retirement. Thirty-two years in all, at 
3007. ayear, make a sum of 9600/., representing the national 
donation, which, added to the amount of expenditure just stated, 
brings up the total cost of a century of scientific work in the 
laboratories of the Royal Institution, together with public 
demonstrations, to 119,800/., or an average of I200/. per 
annum. I think if you recall the names and achievements 
of Young, Davy, Faraday, and Tyndall, you will come to the 
conclusion that the exceptional man is about the cheapest of 
natural products. It is a popular fallacy that the Royal In- 
stitution is handsomely endowed. On thecontrary, it has often 
been in financial straits; and since its foundation by Count 
Rumford its only considerable bequests have been one from 
Thomas G. Hodgkins, an American citizen, for Experimental 
Research, and that of John Fuller for endowing with 95/. a year 
the chairs of Chemistry and Physiology. In this connection the 
Davy-Faraday Laboratory, founded by the liberality of Dr. 
Ludwig Mond, will naturally occur to many minds, But though 
affliated to the Royal Institution, with, I hope, reciprocal in- 
direct advantages, that Laboratory is financially independent 
and its endowments are devoted to its own special purpose, 
which is to provide opportunity to prosecute independent re- 
search for worthy and approved applicants of all nationalities. 
The main reliance of the Royal Institution has always been, and 
still remains, upon the contributions of its members, and upon 
corresponding sacrifices in the form of time and labour by its 
professors. It may be doubted whether we can reasonably count 
upon a succession of scientific men able and willing to make sacri- 
fices which the conditions of modern life tend to renderincreasingly 
burdensome. Modern science is in fact in something of a dilemma. 
Devotion to abstract research upon small means is becoming 
always harder to maintain, while at the same time the number 
of wealthy independent searchers after truth and patrons of 
science of the style of Joule, Spottiswoode, and De la Rue is 
apparently becoming smaller. The installations required by 
the refinements of modern science are continually becoming 
more costly, so that upon all grounds it would appear that 
without endowments of the kind provided by Dr. Carnegie the 
outlook for disinterested research is rather dark. On the other 
luand, these endowments, unless carefully administered, might 
obviously tend to impair the single-minded devotion to the 
search after truth for its own sake to which science has owed 
almost every memorable advance made in the past. The 
Camegie Institute will dispose in a year of as much money as 
the members of the Royal Institution have expended in a cen- 
tury upon its purely scientific work. It will at least be 
interesting to note how far the output of high-class scientific 
work corresponds to the hundredfold application of money to 
its production. Nor will it be of less interest to the people of 
this country to observe the results obtained from that moiety of 
Dr. Carnegie’s gift to Scotland which is to be applied to the 
promotion of scientific research. 
Applied Chemistry. English and Foreign. 
The Diplomatic and Consular reports published from time to 
time by the Foreign Office are usually too belated to be of much 
use to business men, but they sometimes contain information 
concerning what is done in foreign countries which affords 
food for reflection. One of these reports, issued a year ago, 
gives a very good account of the German arrangements and 
provisions for scientific training, and of the enormous com- 
mercial demand for the services of men who have passed suc- 
NO. 1715, VOL. 66] 
NATURE 
[SEPTEMBER II, 1902 
cessfully through the universities and Technical High Schools, 
as well as of the wealth that has accrued to Germany through 
the systematic application of scientific proficiency to the 
ordinary business of life. 
.Taking these points in their order, I have thought it a 
matter of great interest to obtain a comparative view of chemical 
equipment in this country and in Germany, and I am indebted 
to Prof. Henderson of Glasgow, who last year became the 
secretary of a committee of this Association, of which Prof. 
Armstrong is chairman, for statistics referring to this country, 
which enable a comparison to be broadly made. The author of 
the Consular report estimates that in 1901 there were 4500 
trained chemists employed in German works, the number 
having risen to this point from 1700 employed twenty-five 
years earlier. It is difficult to give perfectly accurate figures 
for this country, but a liberal estimate places the number of 
works chemists at 1500, while at the very outside it cannot be 
put higher than somewhere between 1500 and 2000, In other 
words, we cannot show in the United Kingdom, notwithstanding 
the immense range of the chemical industries in which we once 
stood prominent, more than one-third of the professional staff 
employed in Germany. It may perhaps be thought or hoped 
that we make up in quality for our defect in quantity, but un- 
fortunately this is not the case. On the contrary, the German 
chemists are, on the average, as superior in technical training 
and acquirements as they are numerically. Details are given 
in the report of the training of 633 chemists employed in German 
works. Ofthese, 69 per cent. hold the degree of Ph.D., about 
10 per cent. hold the diploma of a Technical High School, and 
about 5 percent. hold both qualifications. That is to say, 84 
per cent. have received a thoroughly systematic and complete 
chemical training, and 74 per cent. of these add the advantages 
of a university career. Compare with this the information 
furnished by 500 chemists in British works. Of these only 21 
per cent. are graduates, while about 10 per cent. held the 
diploma of a college. Putting the case as high as we can, and 
ignoring the more practical and thorough training of the German 
universities, which give their degrees for work done, and not for 
questions asked and answered on paper, we have only 31 per 
cent. of systematically trained chemists against 84 per cent. in 
German works. It ought to be mentioned that about 21 per 
cent. of the 500 are Fellows or Associates of the Institute of 
Chemistry, whatever that may amount to in practice, but of 
these a very large number have already been accounted for 
under the heads of graduates and holders of diplomas. 
These figures, which I suspect are much too favourable on 
the British side, unmistakably point to the prevalence among 
employers in this country of the antiquated adherence: to 
rule of thumb, which is at the root of much of the back- 
wardness we have to deplore. It hardly needs to be pointed 
out to such an audience as the present that chemists who are 
neither graduates of a university, nor holders of a diploma from a 
technical college, may be competent to carry on existing pro- 
cesses according to traditional methods, but are very unlikely to 
effect substantial improvements, or to invent new and more 
efficient processes. I am very far from denying that here and 
there an individual may be found whose exceptional ability en- 
ables him to triumph over all defects of training. But in all 
educational matters it is the average man whom we have to con- 
sider, and the average ability which we have to develop. Now, 
to take the second point—the actual money value of the indus- 
tries carried on in Germany by an army of workers both quan- 
titatively and qualitatively so superior to our own, The Con- 
sular report estimates the whole value of German chemical 
industries at not less than fifty millions sterling per annum. 
These industries have sprung up within the last seventy years, 
and have received enormous expansion during the last thirty. 
They are, moreover, very largely founded upon basic discoveries 
made by English chemists, but never properly appreciated or 
scientifically developed in the land of their birth, I will place 
before you some figures showing the growth of a single firm 
engaged in a single one of these industries—the utilisation of 
coal tar for the production of drugs, perfumes, and colouring- 
matters of every conceivable shade. The firm of Friedrich 
Bayer & Co. employed in 1875, 119 workmen. The number 
has more than doubled itself every five years, and in May of 
this year that firm employed 5000 workmen, 160 chemists, 260 
engineers and mechanics, and 680 clerks. For many years past 
it has regularly paid 18 per cent. on the ordinary shares, which 
this year has risen to 20 per cent. ; and in addition, in common 
ee ee ee 
