30 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



mistake. Nothing consolidates a research school more firmly than the 

 feeling that all who labour in its interests are recognised by having 

 assigned to them collaborators of real ability. 



I am not yet done with the professor and his staff, for they will 

 have other matters to attend to if research schools are to justify their 

 existence and to do more than add to the bulk of our journals. In 

 many cases it will be found that the most gifted of the young workers 

 under their care lack what, for want of a better expression, is known as 

 ' general culture.' Eemember, these graduates have just emerged from 

 a period of intensive study in which chemistry and the allied sciences 

 have absorbed most of their attention. For their own sake and in the 

 interests of our subject, they must be protected from the criticism that 

 a scientific education is limited in outlook and leads to a narrow 

 specialism Tlie research years are plastic years, and many oppor- 

 tunities may be found in the course of the daily consultations ' to 

 impress upon the student that there is literature other than the records 

 of scientific papers, and music beyond the range of student songs.' 

 I mention only two of the many things which may be added to elevate 

 and refine the research student's life. Others will at once occur to 

 you, but I tui'n to an entirely different feature of research training, for 

 which I make a special plea : I refer to the inculcation of business-like 

 methods. You will not accuse me, I hope, of departing from the 

 spirit of scholarship or of descending into petty detail, but my experi- 

 ence has been that research students require firm handling. 

 Emancipated as they are from the restrictions of undergraduate study, 

 the idea seems to prevail that these workers ought to be excused the 

 rules which usually govern a teaching laboratory, and may therefore 

 work in any manner they choose. It requires, in fact, the force of a 

 personal example to demonstrate to them that research work can be 

 carried out with all the neatness and care demanded by quantitative 

 analysis. Again, in the exercise of their new freedom young col- 

 laborators are inclined to neglect recording their results in a manner 

 which secures a permanent record and is of use to the senior collaborator. 

 As a rule, the compilation of results for publication is not done by 

 the experimenter, and a somewhat elaborate system of records has to 

 be devised. It should be possible, twenty years after the work has 

 been done, to quote the reasons which led to the initiation of each 

 experiment, and to trace the source and history of each specimen 

 analysed, or upon which standard physical constants have been deter- 

 mined. I need not enter into detail in this connection beyond stating 

 that, although a system which secures these objects has for many j^ears 

 been adopted in St. Andrews, constant effort is required to maintain 

 the standard. 



One of the greatest anxieties of the research supervisor is, however, 

 the avoidance of extravagance and waste. The student is sometimes 

 inclined to assume a lordly attitude and to regard such matters as 

 the systematic recovery of solvents beneath his notice. My view is 

 that, as a matter of discipline as much as in the interests of economy, 

 extravagant working should not be tolerated. There is naturally an 

 economic limit where the time spent in such economies exceeds in 



