NATURE 



385 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, iS 



PROFESSOR OSTWALD ON ENGLISH AND 

 GERMAN SCIENCE. 



PROP". RAMSAY has done good service by com- 

 municating to the Times a letter he has received 

 from Prof. Ostwald of the highest importance at the 

 present time, when, fortunately for us, C.erman supremacy 

 along many lines of applied science and the causes of 

 it, are being at last recognised. 



No one has a better right to speak on this subject than 

 Prof Ostwald, and the fact that we may take his com- 

 munication as one made in the interests of British science 

 makes it all the more valuable. 



What he says will be no news to the readers of 

 NatI'kk, because for years past we have been pointmg 

 out the rocks ahead and the steps necessary to avoid 

 them ; but our voice has been as that of one crying in the 

 wilderness. Fortunately for us this is so no longer. The 

 Times devotes a leader to Dr. Ostwald's letter, which 

 we give in another column, but it does not appear that 

 even the Times is in real touch with the actual position. 



" The Germans have found that nothing pays so well 

 as knowledge, and that new knowledge always pays in 

 the long run. They act on this principle by maintaining 

 a steady demand for men competent to extend the domain 

 of theoretical know ledge, paying them well for doing it, and 

 takingtheirchance of one valuable practicaldiscoveryturn- 

 ing up among a score that for the present lead to nothing. 

 How good that chance is may be judged from the enor- 

 mous success attending German chemical industries of 

 all kinds. Germany controls the fine chemical markets 

 of the world, and that means that she takes tax and toll 

 of almost e\ery industry in every country. How easily 

 we might have forestalled her can be fully understood 

 only by those who know what a splendid start we had 

 in capital, in machinery, in control of markets, and in 

 root ideas. .Some of her most lucrative industries have 

 been developed out of English discoveries, due to the 

 genius of individual Englishmen, but never properly 

 grasped and worked out by English manufacturers. Her 

 commercial domain will go on extending, and ours pro- 

 portionately shrinking, unless Englishmen become prac- 

 tical enough to look beyond their noses, and wise enough 

 to believe in knowledge." 



This is excellent ; but then we are also told — 



" For any healthy reform we want driving power, and 

 the driving power must come from manufacturers en- 

 lightened enough to understand the secret of German 

 success and English failure. It is industry that must 

 endow research, not from any unpractical desire to add 

 to the number of useless persons who know all that has 

 been done, yet do not know how to do anything new, but 

 from the very practical desire of manufacturers to extend 

 their business and add to their profits.'' 



And again : — 



"There is a clamour now and again for State aid, and 

 Dr. Ostwald's letter will, perhaps, stimulate it, because he 

 refers to the action of the State in Germany. But the 

 root of the matter in Germany lies in private enterprise, 

 and it must do so here. Heaven helps those who help 

 themselves, and the State cannot do better than observe 

 the same limitation. When industry endows research it 

 will be time to ask for assistance from the taxpayer. 



NO. 1400, VOL. 54] 



Until then State endowment of research can mean little 

 more than throwing money away upon abstract acquire- 

 ments having no real relation to the facts of national 

 prosperity." 



Let us accept for a moment that "industry," "manu- 

 facturers," and " private enterprise " in Britain at once 

 proceed to do all that the Times lays at their doors. 

 What then ? Prof Ostwald answers this question by 

 telling us what the Prussian Government and the various 

 German States have done and are doing for research 

 and scientific education, above and beyond all the efforts 

 made by German "industry," "manufacturers," and 

 " private enterprise." 



In such a competition Britain, without the State aid so 

 amply and wisely given in Germany, is certain to lose. 



It has already been pointed out in these columns, and it 

 is worth while to re-state it, that the connection between 

 our national greatness, our national defences, and our 

 commerce, is universally recognised, and that the State 

 spends, and properly spends, tens of millions a year, the 

 protection of our commerce being assigned as one of the 

 ostensible reasons. 



But another thing which as yet is not generally re- 

 cognised is that so surely as our national greatness is 

 based upon our industries, as surely in the future must 

 our industries be based upon science. 



It IS clear, therefore, that ■ if in other countries the 

 advancement of science is the duty not only of individuals, 

 but of States, mere individual effort in any one country 

 must be crushed out in the international competition 

 w^hich is growing keener and keener every day. 



Taking things as we find them, we spend tens of 

 millions a year to protect our commerce which is a 

 measure of our industries ; while the basis of these, 

 science, is to remain unprotected, unorganised, and 

 unaided, except by local eftbrts and the action of 

 individuals. 



Surely such a contention cannot be seriously main- 

 tained—such inconsistent action can have no logical 

 basis. The real remedy lies in consistently organising 

 both our peace and our war forces, as Huxley pointed 

 out many years ago. We have now a War or Indus- 

 tries-protecting Council : by the side of it we want a 

 Peace or Industries-producing Council ; in other words, 

 a strong Minister of Science, who shall have as complete 

 a staff of men of science to advise him as the President 

 of the War Council finds himself provided with in the 

 heads of the Army and Navy Departments. 



Only in this way can Germany's flank be turned. If 

 it were only a question of ironclads how readily everybody 

 would agree. 



Another part of Prof Ostwald's letter, for which thanks 

 are due, is that in which he points out that in Germany 

 research is as important an engine in Education as it is 

 in a Chemical Works ; so that again the call upon 

 " private enterprise " is not sufficient. 



Here, of course, the whole question of our University 

 organisation is raised. We cannot pursue it now, but we 

 may quote a pregnant passage from Prof. Fitzgerald's 

 letter, also printed elsewhere — 



" The most serious cause of complaint of modern society 

 against the old universities is that they have so controlled 



