16 REPORT— 1902. 



quality for our defect in quantity, but unfortunately this is not the case. 

 On the contrary, the German chemists are, on the average, as superior in 

 technical training and acquirements as they are numerically. Details are 

 given in the report of the training of 633 chemists employed in German 

 works. Of these, 69 per cent, hold the degree of Ph.D., about 10 per cent, 

 hold the diploma of a Technical High School, and about 5 per cent, hold both 

 qualifications. That is to say 84 per cent, have received a thoroughly 

 systematic and complete chemical training, and 74 per cent, of these add the 

 advantages of a university career. Compare with this the information 

 furnished by 500 chemists in British works. Of these only 21 per cent, are 

 graduates, while about 10 per cent, hold the diploma of a college. Putting 

 the case as high as we can, and ignoring the more practical and thorough 

 training of the German universities, which give their degrees for work done, 

 and not for questions asked and answered on paper, we have only 31 per cent, 

 of systematically trained chemists against 84 per cent, in German works. 

 It ought to be mentioned that about 21 per cent, of the 500 are Fellows 

 or Associates of the Institute of Chemistry, whatever that may amount 

 to in practice, but of these a very large number have already been 

 accounted for under the heads of graduates and holders of diplomas. 

 These figures, which I suspect are much too favourable on the British 

 side, unmistakably point to the prevalence among employers in this 

 country of the antiquated adherence to rule of thumb, which is at the 

 root of much of the backwardness we have to deplore. It hardly needs 

 to be pointed out to such an audience as the present that chemists who 

 are neither graduates of a university, nor holders of a diploma from a 

 technical college, may be competent to carry on existing processes 

 according to traditional methods, but are very unlikely to effect sub- 

 stantial improvements, or to invent new and more efficient processes. I 

 am very far from denying that here and there an individual may be found 

 whose exceptional ability enables him to triumph over all defects of 

 training. But in all educational matters it is tlie average man whom we 

 have to consider, and the average ability which we have to develop. 

 Now, to take the second point — the actual money value of the indus- 

 tries carried on in Germany by an army of workers both quantitatively 

 and qualitatively so superior to our own. The Consular report estimates 

 the whole value of German chemical industries at not less than fifty 

 millions sterling per annum. These industries have sprung up within the 

 last seventy years, and have received enormous expansion during the last 

 thirty. They are, moreover, very largely founded upon basic discoveries 

 made by English chemists, but never properly appreciated or scientifically 

 developed in the land of their birth. I will place before you some figures 

 showing the growth of a single firm engaged in a single one of these 

 industries — the utilisation of coal tar for the production of drugs, per- 

 fumes, and colouring-matters of every conceivable shade. The firm of 

 Friedrich Bayer & Co. employed in 1875, 119 workmen. The number 

 has more than doubled itself every five years, and in May of this year 



