B.— CHEMISTRY. 29 



issue my first note of warning, and it is to the professors. It is an 

 easy matter to nominate a research student ; a research laboratory com- 

 fortably filled with workers is an inspiring sight, but there are few more 

 harassing duties than those which involve the direction of young 

 research chemists. No matter how great their enthusiasm and abilities, 

 these pupils have to be trained, guided, inspired, and this help can 

 come only from the man of mature years and experience. I am well 

 aware that scorn has been poured on the idea that research requires 

 training. No doul^t tlie word is an expression of intellectual freedom, 

 Init 1 have seen too many good investigators spoiled and discouraged 

 through lack of this help to hold any other opinion than that training is 

 necessary. 1 remember, too, years when I wandered more or less aim- 

 lessly down the by-paths of pointless inquiries, and I then learned to 

 realise the necessity of economising the time and effoi't of others. 



The duties of such a supervisor cannot be light. He must possess 

 versatility ; for although a ' research school ' will doubtless preserve 

 one particular type of problem as its main feature, there must be a 

 sufficient variety of topics if narrow specialisation is to be avoided. 

 Eemember, also, that there can be no formal course of instruction 

 suitable for groups of students, no common course applicable to all 

 pupils and all inquiries. Individual attention is the first necessity, and 

 the educative value of early researches is largely derived from the daily 

 consultations at the laboratory bench or in the library. The responsi- 

 bility of becoming a research supervisor is great, and, even with the 

 best of good will, many find it difficult to enter sympathetically into 

 the mental position of the beginner. An unexpected result is obtained, 

 an analysis fails to agree, and the supervisor, out of his long experience, 

 can explain the anomaly at once, and generally does so. If the pupil 

 is to derive any real benefit from his difficulties, his adviser must for 

 the moment place himself in the position of one equally jiuzzled, and 

 must lead his collaborator to sum up the evidence and arrive at the 

 correct conclusion for himself. The policy thus outlined is, I believe, 

 sound, but it makes severe demands on patience, sympathy, and, above 

 all, time. 



Research supervision, if conscientiously given, involves the com- 

 plete absorption of the director's energy and leisure. There is a rich 

 reward in seeing pupils develop as independent thinkers and workers, 

 but the supervisor has to pay the price of seeing his own research 

 output fade away. He will have more conjoint papers, but fewer 

 individual publications, and limitations will be placed on the nature of 

 his work by the restricted technique of his pupils. 



I have defined a high standard, almost an ideal, but there is, of 

 course, the easy alternative to use the technical skill of the graduate 

 to carry out the more laborious and mechanical parts of one's own 

 researches, to regard these young workers as so many extra pairs of 

 hands. I need not elaborate the outcome of such a policy. 



There is another temptation, and that, in an institution of university 

 rank, is for the professor to leave research training in the hands of 

 his lecturers, selecting as his collaborators only those workers who 

 have passed the apprenticeship stage. This, I am convinced, is a 



