May 20, 1915] 
NATURE 
38, 

research and a little expenditure on the scientific train- 
ing of able men we would be able as a country to 
succeed just in the same way as the Germans have 
succeeded in recent years. My fear is that after the 
war we shall have to contend with a fiercer competition 
than we have had to contend with even in recent 
years, and it will.be conducted by our enemy with less 
scrupulous methods. The Government agree with me 
that something ought to be done at once, and we 
must make more use of the workers in our country 
and prepare for an increased supply of them, and 
bring our universities and technical institutions into 
closer association with industry, and also bring our 
leaders of industry into closer association with skilled 
workers. Steps must be taken at once. Adequate 
supplies require. prolonged endeaveur. The task 
immediately before us may be advanced at once by 
the appointment of an Advisory Council on. Indus- 
trial Research. I want a Committee of experts who 
will themselves be able to consult other expert com- 
mittees working in different directions. | They, in 
turn, must be associated with leaders of industry. 
We shall want advisers representing various industries 
in the country who not only possess certain knowledge 
in connection with pure science, but will be able to 
turn to the best account the knowledge they have 
acquired in the application of that knowledge to in- 
dustry. We shall work in close co-operation with the 
Board of Trade, who are seconding the efforts of my 
old board. Such a body as an Advisory Council of 
very distinguished men upon whom we shall rely for 
advice, ought to be at work, and I hope it will be 
at work within the next few weeks. JI am now con- 
sidering the names, although I am not in a position 
to name them at the moment. 
So soon as we get a Committee of that kind 
nominated they will at once begin their work. The 
solution of several problems will be placed before 
them in connection with the glass industry, the 
making of hard porcelain, technical optics; and it will 
be one of their duties to secure selected workers who 
have passed through graduated courses suitable for 
doing research work in laboratories in the solution of 
a certain number of definite problems. They will have 
to advise me as to how money should be immediately 
spent, and how it should be subsequently spent when 
we are able to obtain rather larger grants from the 
Treasury than we shall have at our disposal during 
the current year. They will have to advise as to the 
way money should be spent in training and research 
work generally, and how money should be spent and 
distributed amongst specialised departments, such as 
the Imperial College of Science at South Kensington. 
What I am anxious to secure is the use of the best 
scientific brains in connection with this enormous 
problem which is of such vital importance to the 
country. I hope to place on the Estimates for the 
current year a sum between 25,0001. and 30,000l1., but 
the demand for money for this work will enormously 
increase as time goes on, and I want to inform the 
House that whilst we are beginning with this com- 
paratively small sum we think it will develop, and if 
the scheme is to succeed I believe it must depend upon 
State help in the years to come, and State help must 
steadily progress. 
As I have been longer in my present post than any 
of my predecessors, I may be allowed to say that in 
my judgment two things are essential in the interests 
of this country if we are to maintain our position and 
succeed in the future and remain in the proud position, 
industrially and commercially, in which we are now 
situated. First, that after the war, and even during 
the war, an effort should be made to retain longer at 
school those who are able to benefit by further educa- 
tion. Too many now leave school at the ages of 
NO. 2377, VOL. 95] 


twelve, thirteen, and fourteen, and there is an enor- 
mous wastage of ability in the country owing to 
the non-education of the children after that age. 
Secondly, the nation should create careers for men 
who are capable in the scientific world of benefiting 
that problem. If we had these two things I believe we 
should maintain our position, and without them I am 
afraid we shall be discouraged. Therefore, so far as 
I am able, I wish to appeal to all those men through- 
out the country who are devoting their lives to the 
cause of education to do what they can to encourage, 
not only the longer education of abler children in the 
secondary schools, but also to make the scheme which 
I have outlined here this evening very briefly a success 
in connection with training scientific workers who 
will be a real advantage to the industries of this 
country in years to come. 
Sir Puirip Macnus: I have no doubt whatever 
that the scheme-for co-ordinating more successfully 
the science of industry will be welcomed by all 
scientific men in this country. I should not like it 
to be thought for one moment that our universities 
and our technical institutions have failed to turn out 
a sufficient number of scientifically trained men to be 
able to carry on research work in connection with 
our industries almost to the same extent that it has 
been done in other countries. Where we have to 
some extent, and to a large extent, failed in this 
country is in the appreciation of manufacturers and 
employers of the value and importance of such scien- 
tific training, and if the conclusions at which the 
President has arrived, and if the facts connected with 
this war will bring home to our manufacturers and 
employers the great advantage which they can obtain 
by liberally supporting scientific men in connection 
with their work, then the Right Hon. gentleman 
will not have spoken in vain this evening. 
There is nothing in which we have been more 
deficient in this country than in scientific organisation, 
and, if I may say so, in the organisation of our 
science, and to this I hope that any such council as 
he has proposed will diligently apply itself. We have 
a great number of institutions doing excellent work, 
but the work of one often overlaps that of another. 
We want very carefully to see that each institution 
does that work which it is best fitted to do, and that 
manufacturers shall have no difficulty whatever in 
obtaining through any technical or scientific institu- 
tion the particular class of scientific man which will 
be helpful in the industry in which they are employed. 
Take London, for instance. We have already the 
Imperial College of Science and Technology, on the 
organisation committee of which I was a member. 
We have also the Imperial Institute, in which a 
certain amount of research work is being done of a 
very high quality in connection with our colleges. 
We have also, not very far removed, the National 
Physical Laboratory, where research work is being 
done, but where more research work might be done 
if larger funds were available for the purpose. In 
Berlin there is what is called the Reichsanstalt. That 
is a research institute which combines the work of our 
national institute and the National Physical Labora- 
tory, and that institute is placed in close juxtaposition 
with its Imperial Institute of Science and Technology, 
which goes by the name of Charlottenburg. f 
The President of the Board of Education has referred 
to the fact that it is very difficult to obtain men who 
will be attracted to the profession of technologists at 
a salary of 150l. a year. [ was sorry that he did not 
remember that the Government itself has advertised 
for very highly skilled technical chemists at Woolwich 
at that same salary. I complained of that years ago, 
but I was told that there was quite a sufficient num- 
ber of highly skilled chemists only too glad to accept 
