December 19, 1901] 



NATURE 



157 



duced to living by taking in each other's washing ? The 

 economical laws which apply to nations are much 

 the same as those which govern individuals, but we have 

 yet to meet the man who takes pleasure in his competitors' 

 wealth on the ground that it conduces to his own pros- 

 perity. What is to be gained by burying our heads in the 

 sand and announcing that no danger is in sight ? With 

 nations as with individuals, progress must cease when 

 self-complacency begins. 



Considering first Mr. Balfour's last proposition — Do 

 the leaders of industry in this country show that flexibility 

 and power of adaptation to changing needs which is 

 absolutely necessary for meeting the demands of the world 

 in manufactures ? If we are to credit the statements of 

 experts in almost every branch of trade, and the facts 

 which are patent to our eyes, we must conclude that they 

 do not. In the chemical industries, where, before all 

 others, adaptation to rapid changes and the immediate 

 utilisation of new scientific discoveries are of paramount 

 importance, we have not only lost the supremacy we once 

 possessed, but we stand at present in great danger, in the 

 organic-chemical manufactures at any rate, of falling out 

 of the running altogether. The chemical trade of 

 Germany, built up almost entirely during the last forty 

 years, now amounts to an annual value of about 

 50,000,000/., of which about 10.000,000/. represents the 

 value of the production of colouring-matters, synthetic 

 medicinal agents, perfumes, and other coal-tar products. 

 If we examine in detail the statistics of this latter branch, 

 we find that the six largest German manufacturers alone 

 employ more than iS,ooo workpeople, 500 chemists, 350 

 engineers and technologists, and 1360 business men, 

 managers, travellers, clerks, lic. In England, the birth- 

 place and cradle of this industry, there are certainly not 

 more than 30 or 40 chemists and 1000 workpeople em- 

 ployed upon it, and whilst our imports of colourmg-matters 

 have slowly increased, our exports to the world of these pro- 

 ducts, which, fifteen years ago, amounted to about one- 

 fourth of those of Germany, do not now amount to a 

 tenth part. Even in the hon.e market we are only able 

 to supply about ten per cent, of the total quantity of 

 dye-stuffs our textile industries require. In the manufac- 

 ture of synthetic medicinal agents, artificial perfumes, 

 sweetening materials, photographic developers, <S:c., 

 which are all outgrowths of the coal-tar colour industry, 

 the matter is even worse, for these manufactures are 

 almost non-existent in this country. Even in the 

 " heavy chemical " trade, which has always been regarded 

 as one of our staple industries, we find ourselves seriously 

 assailed, and most of the important developments of 

 recent years have taken place upon the Continent. We 

 further stand in imminent danger of losing nearly three 

 millions annually by the destruction of our Indian 

 indigo industry in competition with the synthetically 

 prepared indigo of Germany, because the study of 

 organic chemistry has been so much neglected in this 

 country that we have neither attempted to improve (until 

 quite recently) the crude and wasteful methods of ob- 

 taining the natural indigo, nor devoted ourselves to dis- 

 covering methods for its artificial production. Is it 

 conceivable that an English firm of chemical manufac- 

 turers would be willing to devote, as the Badische Com- 

 pany have done, nearly a million pounds to experimental 

 plant, and scientific investigations extending over twenty 

 years, in an enterprise of this character ? 



If, again, we turn to the engineering industries, in 

 which a pre-eminence may fairly be considered our birth- 

 right, wc meet with a somewhat similar state of affairs. 

 In electrical engineering it is universally recognised that 

 we must now concede the palm to America. Also in tool- 

 making machinery, printing machinery, type-writers, &c., 

 the American manufacturers are able to turn out better 

 and cheaper work than our own. In machinery for 

 chemical processes Germany has established a speciality, 



NO. 1677, VOL. 65] 



whilst in the building of motor-cars — a very large and 

 profitable industry directly developed out of the cycle 

 industry — France by her superior workmanship has been 

 able to obtain a monopoly. We are also outstripped by 

 France in all those industries in which the native artistic 

 taste of the workman plays an important part. 



Although it could not, of course, be expected that we 

 should excel in every branch of manufacture, can we 

 consider, with such facts as these before us, that our 

 leaders of industry show the requisite adaptability to 

 modern conditions to which Mr. Balfour refers ? or, in 

 other words, are they sufficiently alive to the importance 

 of applying science to industry in every branch of manu- 

 facture ? Further, are we justified in saying " that there 

 is no lack of well-trained and skilled persons in all 

 branches of manufacture " ? Are our technical schools, 

 as Mr. Balfour appears to believe, turning out the men 

 who will reinstate our lost or declining industries ? Much 

 as we may appreciate the excellent work which these 

 institutions are doing for the general education of the 

 masses, we are forced to the' sorrowful conclusion that 

 this is not so, and that so far as higher scientific educa- 

 tion is concerned the results are far out of proportion to 

 the enormous sums which have been devoted to their 

 establishment. The fault for this in no way lies with the 

 technical schools themselves, but with the want of system 

 and incompleteness of our national education. In place 

 of putting a coping-stone of technical knowledge upon an 

 already sound and thorough education, these institutions 

 are more often called upon to cram the elements of a 

 science, or, worse, the details of its industrial application, 

 within a minimum of time into the minds of school-boys 

 or lads engaged in rechnical pursuits, who, through 

 absence of a satisfactory educational foundation, are 

 quite unfitted for their reception. The result too often 

 is the entire extinction of any natural originality which 

 the lad might have possessed, and the conversion of his 

 mind into a machine for the unthinking performance of 

 routine operations. How is it possible, for instance, that 

 a chemist who, after a very insufficient general education, 

 has acquired his knowledge of the science by a 

 two or three years' course of study at a tech- 

 nical school, should equal in capacity his German 

 colleague, who, upon the basis of a sound school educa- 

 tion, has received a five years' training at a German 

 University or Polytechnicum, where he has not only 

 acquired a thorough grasp of his own and cognate 

 sciences, but by carrying out investigations has been 

 stimulated in originality and encouraged to seek new 

 knowledge for himself? Except in the rare instances 

 where native genius is bound to come to the fore, the 

 former can have no possible chance in competition with 

 the latter. It is even a matter of but little moment 

 whether the education of the German has embraced any 

 technical instruction, as with the sound knowledge he 

 possesses of the principles of his science he will soon 

 learn in actual practice their technical applications, and 

 when learnt can usually carry them much further. That 

 nearly all the best positions of the chemical profession in 

 this country are at present filled by German chemists, or 

 by English chemists educated in Germany, is the best 

 proof of the inferiority of our educational methods. 



What we undoubtedly require is what Mr. Balfour 

 satirically calls "a manipulation of our methods of educa- 

 tion.'' We require a "system" in the educational fabric 

 of the country, which, together with abetter appreciation 

 of the value of science in every industry, would do much 

 to enable our technical schools to fulfil their proper 

 function and to carry out the work which the country 

 expects of them. That such a reform of our educational 

 methods may be long in coming we may, however, well 

 believe, when we hear a distinguished statesman and 

 leader of philosophical thought fail so entirely to appre- 

 ciate the needs of the case, Arthur G. Green. 



