NATURE 



217 



THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 1874 



SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY 



IS England rapidly losing that commercial and manu- 

 facturing supremacy which she has held before all 

 the world for generations past ? Is she going the way of 

 Venice, of Florence, of Holland? If so, is it because 

 she feels blindly secure that " what hath been, will be," 

 neglecting the means on which success in commerce and 

 manufactures in these days depends-— means which are 

 being so industriously used by rival nations, that they are 

 rapidly shooting ahead of England on England's own 

 ground ? 



Such would seem to be the drift of the utterances 

 which have come from three different quarters during 

 the past week. In Lord Derby's address at the inaugura- 

 tion of the Society for the Promotion of Scientific 

 Industry ; in the correspondence in the Tiines of the past 

 few days ; and in the statements of the Society of Arts' depu- 

 tation last Saturday to the Lord Chancellor with respect 

 to the Patent Museum, it is more or less distinctly hinted 

 that the industries of England are perishing from lack of 

 knowledge. Other countries, but especially Germany, we 

 are told, are distancing us, and we fear the proofs of the 

 statement are too convincing to be resisted. To all 

 appearance, Germany is destined to step into the honour- 

 able position as an industrial nation, which all the world 

 has hitherto acknowledged as belonging to England. In 

 short, in Commerce as in Science we are losing ground. 



One correspondent in Monday's Tunes tells us that in 

 the East " the Germans are carrying everything before 

 them ;" "by their energy and enterprise they have gone 

 ahead of their easy-going English neighbours . . . what- 

 ever be the causes, there can be no question that they 

 arc outstripping us in the race for commercial prosperity in 

 the East." This is in confirmation of what a corre- 

 spondent in a previous number of the Times had stated 

 from observation as to the rapid ascendency of the 

 Germans in commerce. Another correspondent, an 

 " Ex-president of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce," 

 states in Monday's Times, without hesitation, that young 

 Germans make the best business men. Dr. Lunge, in his 

 recent address to the Newcastle-on-Tyne Chemical Society 

 (see Nature, vol. ix. p. 113), states that in the matter of 

 the applications of chemistry, "' foreign countries are 

 taking the wind out of our sails very fast in that line, and 

 that both their rate of progress and the means of attaining 

 it are very much superior to ours," because a better career 

 is open to chemists there than \ni\\ us. Lord Derby says 

 that if we don't take care we shall find ourselves in the 

 position of a man who succeeds to a ready-made business, 

 nd who " does not get up as early nor work as hard as 

 J is father, who had to make it." Perhaps, had Lord 

 Derby said all that he thought, he would have put the 

 case much stronger against us. 



What are the causes which have led to this state of 

 things ? How is it especially that Germany is getting so 

 rapidly ahead of us? All who have inquired into the 

 question, attribute it to the difference between the 

 methods of education in England and in Germany, and 

 the greater appreciation of Science in the former country. 

 Vol. IX. -No 221 



The mere fact of the establishment of the Society for the 

 Promotion of Scientific Industry, shows that the eminent 

 men who compose it feci that energetic measures should 

 at once be taken to enlighten the multitudes on whom 

 the success of our industries depend. Lord Derby, in his 

 speech at Manchester, said : — 



" If we mean to keep our old position as the industrial 

 leaders of the world we must throw away no chance, and 

 leave no stone unturned. No doubt, in applied science, 

 whatever discoveries are made or inventions brought into 

 use by one country will soon extend to all. Still there is 

 an obvious advantage in getting the lead ; and that ad- 

 vantage we ought, if possible, to secure. . . . We are shut 

 up therefore to one or two conclusions — either we must 

 acknowledge ourselves beaten, or we must contrive to 

 make every day's labour of a man more productive than 

 it has been hitherto by the more general, or by the more 

 skilful use of mechanical and chemical science. 



He then goes on to state that :— 



" Now it is the belief of the promoters of this new 

 society that a great deal may be done for technical 

 training without interfering with that training of the 

 workshop which is, in one sense, the best of all. They 

 believe, moreover, that there are innumerable investiga- 

 tions of an experimental kind, having for their object the 

 perfecting of industrial processes, which being every- 

 body's business are nobody's business, which would in 

 their results enormously benefit the trade or industry 

 which they concern, but which individuals are slow to 

 undertake, because they do not bring any certain return 

 of profit to the person who spends time and labour upon 

 them." 



Hitherto the vast majority of those connected with our 

 industries have done their work by mere rule-of-thumb, 

 without anything like a scientific knowledge of the mate- 

 rial or the machinery on which they are employed. This 

 will no longer do ; herein lies our weak point ; in this 

 direction it is that the Germans are rapidly excelling us. 

 The secret of the growing success of the Germans in 

 commercial and manufacturing industries lies not only 

 in their thoroughly organised and scientific system of 

 education, in their " Realschule " and their technical 

 training-schools, but in the general interest taken in the 

 advancement of knowledge, the development of new 

 methods. In the Realschule the young German gets a 

 thorough liberal and scientific education, not a mere rule- 

 of-thumb technical training. The literary training is at 

 least as good as that which can be obtained at our best 

 public schools, with the advantage of a thorough instruc- 

 tion in the principles and facts of physical science, with- 

 out any narrow views as to their future practical appli- 

 cation. " The consequence is," says a German writing to 

 Monday's Times, 



" That the ' Realschule ' trains thorough gentlemen 

 who in future life are able to make themselves useful as 

 bankers, merchants, and manufacturers. Many of my 

 friends have acquired such positions ; several of them 

 are well-known inventors and chiefs of enormous trading 

 and manufacturing concerns. This system of education 

 produces a class of men who take a warm interest in all 

 practical matters, and find as much pleasure and amuse- 

 ment in the invention and rivalry of machinery, or the 

 production and quality of merchandise, as the young men 

 in England find in horses and billiards. Go among a par- 

 cel of young Germans of that class, and though you find 

 them ready for all amusements of youth, you will at the 

 same time perceive that they can talk of a great many 



