hp ae 
‘Marcu 10, 1923] 



































“THE present time is exhibiting none other than a 
break in the continuity of civilisation. No longer 
must the production and recognition of supermen be 
left to chance, since unusual genius, in whatever 
uarter it may be found, must have a field provided 
‘or its activities if our place as a leading nation has 
to be maintained. It is the province of higher 
education to discover this genius, a province, which, 
owing to haphazard evolution, is largely at the mercy 
of the dilettante, and, as a consequence, not yet in 
a condition to evolve those power stations of mind 
without which the necessary creative atmosphere 
remains ungenerated. The practical results of the 
German system of higher education have been the 
creation and development of key industries wherever 
possible, these ensuring an industrial system which 
afforded the security of continuous employment of 
an extremely varied character. This conferred a 
measure of national stability which was stout enough 
to defy the whole world for four yous: and, but for 
lack of psychological balance, might have retired the 
actual winner of an apparently drawn battle. 
The industrial exploitation of chemical science by 
Germany has entirely changed the international 
situation, inasmuch as a flourishing ail-round 
chemical industry is now essential to the continued 
success and progress of all great manufacturing 
activities. This industry dominates the whole trade 
situation, and no country, however friendly at 
present, must ever be in a position to dictate by 
eans of it such terms as can spell eventually our 
ecadence and commercial annihilation. An un- 
employment problem of so vast a magnitude as ours 
emands the exploration of every reasonable avenue 
which may provide economic work, a demand which 
ves no room for the neglect of key industries to be 
against us. This in itself is an answer to the 
uery as to whether the material importance of the 
rganic chemical industry warrants its foundation 
in Britain. Recent combinations in other countries 
tween firms engaged in key industries are ominous 
portents for the future. 
The greatest key industry is that of synthetic dye- 
stuffs, which, once established permanently, will 
prove the greatest source of well-being to our nation 
t conceived. Its potentialities are bewildering in 
their immensity and can create and fashion the very 
future itself, so it becomes imperative that no external 
nation must be allowed to possess such a weapon as a 
onopoly. The war demonstrated the tempera- 
mental fitness of our countrymen for the dyestuffs 
industry, and, in spite of the current hostile criticism, 
I hold with Sir William Pope that only a few years 
required for the organisation of a perfect lattice 
of fine chemical industries. 
No industry dependent upon men of science for its 
progress will be able to survive external competition 
of a kind which Germany, the United States, and 
Japan are capable of exerting, unless a creative 
atmosphere is generated within the walls of our 
schools and our standards of intellectual attainment are 
raised to a much higher level than at present obtains. 
It is not sufficiently realised how much research work 
has to be done before any tangible results accrue, and 
therefore a multiplication of agencies is necessary, a 
practical proposition only to be realised by means of 
our higher educational system. 
1 From a paper read at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Technical 
Institutions on March 3. 
No. 2784, VOL. 111] 
NATURE 343 
Research in the Scheme of Higher Education.! 
By Dr. Herspert H. Hopeson, The Technical College, Huddersfield. 
Any comparison of pre-war British and German 
chemical ability which attempts to exalt the German 
as one apart, even as something chemically occult, 
must take the fact into account that so much of our 
best intellect as revealed by scholastic agency is 
absorbed into the civil service that the essence of 
Britain’s research ability has never yet taken part in 
the industrial competition. In Germany the con- 
trary has obtained. The British chemical mission to 
Germany after the Armistice found that industry 
there is systematically linked with the universities, 
and concluded that if our industries are to succeed in 
the future it is in this direction probably more than 
in any other that improvements must be effected. 
It must be realised that higher education with 
respect to science and technology is at the parting of 
the ways, and whether the future is to emphasise the 
mediocre and the mechanical or to reveal latent 
genius will also decide whether the chemical industry, 
with its quota towards the solution of our unemploy- 
ment problem, will also take root in this country. 
Our educational programme, therefore, must include 
a readjustment of the aims of technical education 
and the evolution of a new branch of the teaching 
profession to deal with the higher standard of student 
attainment necessary. No chemical department 
should be without a definite and distinct research 
section in which, at the earliest stage possible, 
students should be initiated into the methods of 
scientific inquiry. This was the practice of the great 
Hofmann, and it is as practicable to-day as it was in 
his brilliant period. The entire staff should also 
have service in the research section as part of their 
duties but with safeguards for individual expression. 
By this means a network of research colonies will be 
brought into existence, and the pivotal principle must 
be insisted upon that directors of research must not 
be prevented by details of organisation from actual 
personal participation. A large amount of individual 
responsibility will thus be generated with a greater 
resultant effort. As the late Prof. Meldola said, “ I 
have not the least hesitation in declaring the belief 
that a school of chemistry which is not also a centre 
of research is bound to degenerate and to become a 
mere cramming establishment not worth the cost of 
maintenance.’ There should also be research centres 
on the lines of the Emperor William Institutes in 
Germany, an ideal proposed by Sir David Brewster 
seventy years ago for providing research careers for 
worthy men. 
I would also suggest that patents should be examined 
by research organisations, and, where dishonest, the 
fact broadcasted, so that the intending fraudulent 
monopolist can be banished from our midst. 
Another factor of far-reaching importance to 
industty is the establishment of English as a language 
for scientific publications at least co-equal with 
German. This can be secured on a stable basis 
only by the quality and quantity of our scientific 
output. 
Only by the development of British research 
ability can our security as a nation be maintained 
and our prosperity advanced, since by it a lattice of 
industries will result, which, by reciprocity with the 
research agencies, will promote the extension of each. 
We shall then face the future with the determination 
to produce results in chemical science not inferior in 
quality or quantity to those in realms of knowledge 
where our leadership has never been in dispute. 
