July 4, 1907] 



NATURE 



educational policy ; the financial strength was exhausted 

 in buildings and equipment, and the efficiency of the staff 

 given only secondary consideration. We, of course, know 

 that success in such educational work depends entirely 

 upon the individual teacher — that the best mode of creating 

 a school of chemistry, or any other subject, is to follow 

 the advice of the late Sir William Flower with regard 

 to the establishment of a museum : " First find a curator 

 and let him build his museum around him." Had this 

 principle been more generally adopted, the new institu- 

 tions might by this time have been playing a really 

 important part in the development of chemical science and 

 chemical industry. As matters are, inadequate provision 

 for maintenance having been made, the general standard 

 of educational work is lowered in order that the grant- 

 earning requirements of some examining board may be 

 met, and as a result the establishments have to be run as 

 purely business concerns. 



There are other minor evils acting as retarding influences 

 with respect to our subject and arising from the same 

 cause, namely, the necessity of conducting these newer 

 institutions, more or less, as commercial establishments. 

 The prevalence of the " business " spirit among the com- 

 mittees and governing bodies gives an exaggerated import- 

 ance to what may be called the office staff — the registrars 

 and clerks. The work of the ofiice staff is capable of 

 being appreciated by the average committeeman, while the 

 work of the scientific staff is generally beyond his com- 

 prehension, except so far as it can be measured by financial 

 gain to the institution. It is not sufficiently realised that 

 men of business and administrative ability are by no means 

 rarities, while really good teachers of science are much 

 scarcer, and men who combine both the qualifications of 

 a good teacher with the inspiring zeal of an original in- 

 vestigator are rarest of all. Now if, as w'as professedly 

 the case, the modern departure in technical education had 

 for its object the improvement of the industries, then it is 

 sufficiently well known to us here that the future of our 

 subject is with the men of the latter class, and the joint 

 exertions of all the registrars and clerks, backed by the 

 efforts of the most skilful chemical pedagogues who get 

 through their syllabus within the session and earn the 

 largest grants or score the highest percentage of successful 

 " passes," will never raise the level of this country either 

 in chemical science or chemical industry. 



It is sometimes stated that it was never contemplated 

 that research should be carried on in these institutions — 

 that this was the duty of the higher educational establish- 

 ments. So it is the duty of the higher educational 

 establishments, but the very fact that these are enabled 

 to discharge their duty in a most imperfect way should 

 have stimulated the newer institutions to make every 

 effort to redeem our credit by making adequate provision 

 for research. I will not venture to intrude my opinions 

 concerning the vitalising influence of research upon other 

 scientific subjects, but with regard to our own 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 the maintenance. It 

 is easy enough to follow the actual course of the degener- 

 ation process in such an institution. The teacher, who 

 may be a man of real ability and who has entered with 

 the hope of finding time and opportunities for research, 

 finds himself, sooner or later, in the position of a chemical 

 schoolmaster. The predominance of the business influence 

 in the institution not only leads, as I have already in- 

 dicated, to the lowering of the level of the instruction and 

 to his own consequent degeneration, but he is, as a further 

 consequence, so overweighted with business and adminis- 

 trative w-ork that these, superadded to his teaching duties, 

 leave him neither time nor energy for original work. The 

 spirit of research within him is strangled by officialism, 

 and his teaching faculties deadened by the monotonous 

 toil of the annually recurring drudgery of routine teaching. 



The scale of remuneration also does not enable these 

 institutions to command the services of the best teachers, 

 although I do not think that this is the chief deterrent 

 cause, as there are numbers of young chemists of first- 

 rate training and ability who would be quite willing to 

 devote their time at the outset of their career to acquiring 



teaching experience in these establishments, even at some 

 personal sacrifice, if facilities for research were given. In 

 the present state of affairs ojie can only marvel at the 

 fact that so many inen of ability can be found willing to 

 take service in these newer institutions, the more especially 

 as, apart froin the absurdly inadequate remuneration often 

 given to the chiefs of the chemical departments, the pay- 

 ment of the subordinate members of the staff is generally 

 on a scale which is nothing short of a scandal to the 

 wealthiest of European nations. Considering the long 

 course of training necessary to produce a competent teacher 

 or demonstrator, and in view of the actual amount of 

 work expected from these men who, by virtue of their 

 attainments and position, are compelled to live up to a 

 standard of high respectability, it seems almost incredible 

 that the average scale of remuneration should not exceed 

 the wages earned by an artisan, and is often below that 

 standard. 



.■\ccording to the " Official List of Appointments " pub- 

 lished by the Institute of Chemistry last year, there are 

 on the staffs of the London and suburban polytechnics 

 about fifty-four trained chemists. To these may be added 

 237 engaged in teaching in similar institutions in provincial 

 centres throughout the United Kingdom. In one respect 

 the hopes of those who expected great opportunities for 

 chemists from the new departure in technical education 

 have been realised. At the present time there are in this 

 country in round numbers some 290 posts available for 

 teachers of chemistry, which posts have actually been 

 created by the latest movement in technical education. 

 If now we ask whether the output of original work from 

 these 130 centres is representative of the productive power 

 of the 290 teachers, there can, I think, be only one answer, 

 and that an emphatic negative. An examination of the 

 lists of teachers in these centres shows that only about 

 twelve out of the total number are carrying on research, 

 and most of these in a desultory way. It is evident that 

 there is justification for my complaint that there is this 

 submergence of creative faculty going on all over the 

 country ; the nets have been spread and the capacity has 

 been caught, but so far with comparatively little effect 

 upon the development of new schools of chemical research. 



The consideration of the question of the position of 

 factories as centres of research is intimately bound up with 

 the educational side of the subject, because we have to 

 deal now with the educational establishments which are 

 supplying the chemists for our factories. The feeders of 

 the chemical factories are the universities and technical 

 schools, British and foreign, and the question before us 

 as the custodians of research is whether the absorption 

 of the chemical talent from these sources by the factories 

 is justified from the industrial point of view — whether 

 these products of modern training, having entered into 

 such careers, are being used to the best advantage. In 

 other words, is that wastage of original faculty which, as 

 I have endeavoured to show, is going on in the educational 

 institutions, going on also in the factories? Whether the 

 total number of chemists employed in our factories is 

 what it should be is a point for the manufacturers them- 

 selves to consider. Even the extreme estimate of 1500 

 docs not seem a very large chemical staff for the whole 

 of the factories of Great Britain. In the German colour 

 industry alone, according to information supplied to us 

 seven years ago as jurors for the Paris International 

 Exhibition, five of the great factories were employing 557 

 chemists — real scientific chemists, and not mere testing 

 machines such as are dignified with the name of chemist 

 in many of our factories. 



From my own experience as head of the chemical depart- 

 ment of a technical college, and with some knowledge 

 of the requirements of chemical industry, I can state that 

 the newer technical education, when conducted in the form 

 of organised courses of dav instruction extending over 

 several years, has enabled us to capture a large amount 

 of chemical capacity. Of the total output of trained 

 chemists from the various institutions, a fair proportion — 

 a number quite equal to the average in other countries — 

 are possessed of the research faculty. We have seen what 

 becomes of this when such men throw in their lot with 

 the educational establishments. Are not we, the teachers, 

 justified in asking whether the prospects of developing 



NO. 1966, VOL. 76] 



