246 

NATURE 
[APRIL 29, 1915, 


The large demand for warships, guns, and projectiles 
has no doubt been a favourable factor. The establish- 
ment of laboratories directed by competent experts in 
steel works and the works of large consumers like 
the railway companies has tended to the improvement 
and standardisation of quality. 
Nevertheless we do not maintain superiority in all 
departments. In the heavy steel and machinery trades 
we have a dominant position, but for lighter machines 
Germany, the United States, and Scandinavia have 
secured a large market. In the case of light and 
medium steel castings—those required for motor-cars, 
for instance—this country has become almost de- 
pendent on Germany and Switzerland. The use of 
steel castings has very greatly increased, and they add 
in an important way to engineering resources. So 
far as a reason can be found for the better and more 
uniform quality of Continental steel castings, it lies 
in the adoption abroad of the electrical furnace, and 
great attention to heat treatment. Many of the steel 
castings come from Switzerland, where the cost of 
raw materials must be greater than in this country, 
and the cost of carriage must balance the lower labour 
cost. 
There is another point. After the war, when happier 
conditions return, our manufacturers must be willing 
to give designs, specifications, and estimates in metric 
measures for countries where the metric system is 
adopted. The use of the metric system is legalised, 
but its compulsory adoption is not likely to be enacted, 
at any rate for a considerable time, if indeed it is 
desirable, about which a good many of us have doubts. 
Meanwhile, in many branches the use of a double 
system of metric and English measures involves little 
difficulty. In fine machinery no doubt it is troubie- 
some, but that at present must be faced. 
Technical Education.—Samuel Butler said that life 
is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from in- 
sufficient premises. It is certainly true of the engineer, 
not engaged in mere repetition work, that he has 
constantly to arrive at conclusions and to act on in- 
sufficient data. Probably no difficult engineering 
problem has ever in the strict sense been completely 
solved. The engineer has to make assumptions, to 
use approximate theories, to decide between material 
and negligible considerations, and to allow for un- 
known contingencies. | Now, scientific training, if 
sufficiently advanced, does enable us to solve most 
problems which are clearly stated and data given, but 
its usefulness does not end there. The trained 
engineer with incomplete data reasons correctly, esti- 
mates probabilities, and knows the limit of the trust- 
worthiness of his conclusions. He does not snatch 
at a pocket-book rule and ignore the assumptions on 
which it is founded. 
Among the various causes which have contributed 
to German industrial development, a thorough and 
widely diffused technical education must be given an 
important place. The branches of industry in which 
Germany has acquired a dominant position are those 
in which advanced applications of science are most 
necessary. 
In the highest branches of scientific discovery this 
country has held a very distinguished place. That 
has been largely due to men who pursued science with- 
out regard to any practical end, or even with a certain 
disrespect for the fruitful applications of science. The 
value of this pursuit of pure science is, of course, not 
to be underrated. Manufacturers, on the other hand, 
who are interested only in applications of science, have 
been a little contemptuous of scientific men who 
seemed indifferent to business. All that is no doubt 
gradually changing. The means of obtaining tech- 
nical knowledge, and the desire to take advantage of 
NO. 2374, VOL. 95] 
it, have increased. But even yet we have no institu- 
tions quite equivalent in buildings, equipment, and 
staff to the great technical high schools on the Con- 
tinent. In Germany and Austria, excluding chemists, 
there are four or five times as many students in tech- 
nical high schools as in colleges of corresponding rank 
in Great Britain. America, Belgium, and Switzer- 
; land in this respect have closely followed Germany. - 
| But now, putting aside political and moral con- 
siderations, it is the thorough and advanced character 
of the education in the technical high schools and the 
researches of their professors, to which indeed many of 
us are greatly indebted, which have so directly pro- 
moted German industry. It is sometimes said that 
the Germans only pick up other people’s discoveries 
| and apply them. I think that is untrue, or at least 
greatly exaggerated. As Dr. Ormandy has well said, 
“those who adapt scientific discoveries to industrial 
use are as entitled to honour and reward as those who 
made the original discovery.” But there is another 
aspect of education in Germany which has a lesson for 
us—the German secondary school is far more efficient 
than ours. Lord Haldane said that ‘tin this country 
we have never understood the significance of the 
secondary school. In Germany the whole educational 
fabric rested on it.’’ Secondary education in Germany 
is State-supported and definitely graded. The Gym- 
nasium, the Real-Gymnasium, and the Real-Schule 
are organised to meet the wants of boys intended for 
different careers. Further, the universities, the pro- 
fessions, and higher Government appointments (in- 
cluding those on railways) are practically closed to all 
who do not pass a severe State maturity examination 
after nine years’ schooling. The precise arrangements 
differ in various States, but in each there is an 
organised system and great pressure on boys to reach 
a high standard. Also those who pass the maturity 
examination are excused one year’s military service. 
The importance of that for us is that a great obstacle 
to really efficient technical instruction in this country 
is the inadequate preparation for it in the schools. 
Practically a year of the three years’ college course 
must be given to work which could well be, and ought 
to be, acquired in school by lads of seventeen or 
eighteen. Perhaps the excessive attention to athletics 
has something to do with our intellectual shortcomings. 
I have spoken of the value of an advanced type of 
technical education for engineers who aspire to posi- 
tions of responsibility, but I do not overlook or under- 
rate the necessity of practical experience. Both are 
necessary, but one should not be cut down at the 
expense of the other. There are many branches of 
engineering, and as to the relative importance of tech- 
nical instruction, workshop, field, and office training, 
in different cases, there may be differences of opinion. 
Further, I am far from advocating the Germanisation 
of English education. Only it seems to me that some 
of our educational tools, like some of our workshop 
tools, are medieval and out of date, and that some of 
our faults need a remedy. If, as I suppose, the cost of 
the war must be paid out of the profits of industry, 
it is of importance that our efficiency should be in- 
creased. Sir George Reid has said that ‘captures of 
German trade in time of war will only be retained 
in time of peace by the capture also of the scientific 
methods of the Germans.” 
Testing Materials.—Half a century ago, most mate- 
rials of construction were selected and bought on the 
reputation of the manufacturer. Experience roughly 
indicated the sources from which the most trustworthy 
supplies could be obtained. Now scarcely any material 
\ in large use is accepted without special testing in the 
| interest of the purchaser. Such testing is primarily 
| intended to distinguish suitable and unsuitable mate- 

