35° 



NATURE 



[September 15, 19 10 



trained men of 20 to 23 years of age straight from 

 the university to fill the highest posts in our business." 

 On the other hand, a professor of cliemistry at a uni- 

 versity, in which great stress is laid on the value 

 of chemical research, says, " It is, perhaps, an index 

 of the slender relationship between commercial chem- 

 istry and scientific work to state that although all the 



research done in my laboratory is in " (using exactly 



the same term as the firm), " I have never had a single 

 inquiry for a chemist from a manufacturer producing or 

 using these compounds." I hope to serve as a labour 

 exchange between this laboratory and that factory. 



There is, again, a common impression that the training 

 in the universities and higher institutions is not sufficiently 

 practical, and much fear is expressed that the university 

 man would not care for the continuous and laborious 

 routine of commercial life. A gigantic association in the 

 north of England, with extensive business ramifications all 

 over the world, and at the works of which considerable 

 chemical knowledge and a general scientific training is 

 necessary, says : ' For our works, the youths who come to 

 us have had a public school or grammar school education 

 of modern type. They are taken from school and sent to 

 the works for twelve months, after which, if they show 

 ability, it is arranged that they should take a three-years' 

 day course at a technical school and obtain the degree of 

 B.Sc. They then go to our own laboratorv, and a training 

 specially suitable to our requirements is given to them." 

 They add, " Provided a youth appears to be energetic and 

 not to have suffered materiallv from the defects often 

 induced by such a course, we should upon the whole prefer 

 a man who had been to a university. . . . For our best 

 positions in the commercial departments we prefer boys 

 of :8 or 19 from good public schools " (I think it 

 is the Manchester Grammar .School type which is in 

 mind), " to those who are younger, and we are equally 

 glad to have university men, provided they are energetic 

 and fond of work. Our opinion of the usual result of a 

 course at the university is that it is not calculated to 

 induce this spirit. The length of the vacations, and the 

 great freedom enjoyed by undergraduates, do not form a 

 good preparation for the absolute tie, the long hours, and 

 the very short holidays of a business life." 



This particular view was written in the north of England. 

 Whether true as a criticism of some phases of our uni- 

 versity life and work, it represents too common a view to 

 be omitted. It is not true of some of our largest technical 

 institutions, and I cannot think that it is true of the 

 younger universities. But it may serve to show these 

 institutions what spade work they must undertake. Let 

 me return to criticisms. \ general manager of one of our 

 great railway companies says, " We have in the past 

 appointed a few university men, but it is not an experi- 

 ment which we are repeating." On the other hand, the 

 general manager of another large railway company says, 

 " In my opinion, no man is fitted for the higher posts in 

 the engineering world unless he has received a full univer- 

 sity education, and it is a great advantage to a man in 

 the industrial and commercial world if he has had, and 

 has made proper use of, a university training." -And again 

 by another, " The university or other technical institute 

 curriculum does not enter into our estimate of the fitness 

 of the individual. It is certainly in favour of the lad who 

 has enjoyed it, but it is, after ail, only a means to an end, 

 and unless it has been intelligently employed by the 

 favoured student, the less fortunate lad with definite aim is 

 not irremediably out of the running." 



The head of a chemical manufacturing company, which 

 employs university trained men, puts his views thus : " We 

 invariably find that men who ronie to us with the highest 

 technical qualifications, either from a ti'chnical institute or 

 from the universities, require a considerable time before 

 they are able to utilise their knowledge practically. An 

 analyst, for example, will take some time before he recog- 

 nises the fact that analyses must be done quickly and 

 accurately, and that, no mistake in analyses is permissible ; 

 with regard to experimental work, it is also some time 

 before a university man can be got to distinguish between 

 results which arc likely to be of practical value and those 

 of only theoretical interest. Some men acquire their 

 experience very quickly, others very slowlv or not at all." 

 One more quotation under this head. .A consulting 

 NO. 2133, VOL. 84] 



engineer with a large practice, who employs twelve univer- 

 sity or technical college trained men, in addition to a large 

 technical staff of a lower grade, says, " 1 am a thorough 

 believer in university and scientific training, but there is, no 

 doubt, considerable difficulty in combining the university 

 and practical training." 



The general absence of replies of any importance from 

 salesmen and merchants not manufacturers, may be taken 

 as indication that the minds of business men of that tvpe 

 are not interested in the problems presented to them bv my 

 letters of inquiry. The opportunities for the propagandist 

 commercial traveller and for the economist have still to be 

 developed. But when the War Office and great railway 

 companies make use of the School of Economics, other 

 State and municipal departments and great corporations 

 will, sooner or later, follow. 



Finally, the industrial and commercial firms point out, as 

 the colleges do, that other qualities than those which 

 generally show in an academic career are necessary in the 

 fields of commerce and industry. Those are the business 

 or economic sense, alertness, capacity for work, loyalty to 

 the firm's interests, push, perseverance, social qualities, 

 including good manners towards clients, tact towards sub- 

 ordinates, and capacity to get the best out of them, and 

 generally the power to control men and things. These 

 qualities do not, as a rule, show early, and consequently 

 firms should in their own interests make the basis of 

 selection large and broad. 



In concluding this section, let me say that many British 

 manufacturers, especially those under younger manage- 

 ment, are displaying their economic sense in a new and 

 interesting direction. Firms manufacturing common com- 

 modities and employing thousands of hands have invited 

 me to visit their works, and have shown me that not only 

 do they employ scientifically trained engineers and chemists, 

 but they employ public-school men as managers, they 

 employ on their permanent staff doctors and dentists for 

 the sake of their hands, they provide much for the social 

 and economic welfare of their workers, and generally they 

 show that they take as much interest in the human as in 

 the other material which comes into their works ; and they 

 do this, not as philanthropists, but as business men. They 

 find that in the interests of their business the human 

 material, as much as the coal and the steel and the sugar 

 and the flour, can respond with more efiiciency to scientific 

 and generally enlightened management. 



What the Consuls-General S.^y. 



It is impossible to ignore the unanimity of the story 

 told by H.-M. Consuls and the experience and earnestness 

 and sense of responsibility of the men who tell it. The 

 main question submitted to them was this : 



It has been said from time to time that British firni< 

 (merchants, manufacturers, and so on) do not sufficiently 

 apply scientific methods to the canvassing of the various 

 markets of the world, and in particular that, as a rule, 

 their travellers and agents do not know the language of 

 those With whom they are dealing; that advertisements, 

 prospectuses, and so on are published in English, with 

 English weights, measures, and money terms ; that 

 British firms do not sufficiently study the needs of the 

 markets ; and that in general there is a want of activity 

 and enterprise of the right kind. The answer is, " To a 

 large extent, true." knA this answer is so emphatic, so 

 unanimous, and withal so moderately stated and so clearly 

 expressed, that it is not possible to regard it as incredulous. 

 The story is as follows. 



Commercial Education. 

 British merchants and manufacturers (and British ship- 

 owners) until about thirty years ago may be said to have 

 had rather more than their share of the world's trade, and, 

 comparatively speaking, made money so easily that thiv 

 grew over-confident, relaxed their energies, and took littl' 

 pains to improve their business methods as time went m 

 and to learn from their competitors. It isonly from aboui 

 that time that they have begun gradually and slowly to 

 realise — through the falling oil of profits and through 

 losing a share of the markets which they used to mono- 

 polise — that the traders and manufacturers of other 

 countries, in particular those of Germany and of th' 



