378 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. L. No. 1295 



This hereditary legislator who, as things are, 

 has it in. his power to manage, or mismanage, 

 the conversion into available energy of the 

 radiation beneficently showered on a certain 

 area (his area) of this country of ours does 

 not seem^^to be aware that the growing of trees 

 is a highly scientific industry, that there are 

 habits and diseases of trees which have been 

 profoimdly studied, that, in short, the whole 

 subject of silviculture bristles with scientific 

 problems, the solutions of which have by pa- 

 tient labor been to a considerable extent ob- 

 tained. 



Take also the case of the dyes industries. 

 The publicists and the good business men — • 

 the supermen of the present age — who wish to 

 control and foster an industry which owes its 

 very existence to an English chemist, refuse to 

 have on the committee which is to manage this 

 important affair any man of scientific emi- 

 nence, and no remonstrance has any effect. 

 These great business men are as a rule not 

 scientific at all. They are all very well for 

 finance, in other respects their businesses are 

 run by their works-managers, and, in general, 

 ;they are not remarkable for paying hand- 

 somely their scientific assistants. 



I myself once heard it suggested by an emi- 

 nent statesman that an electrical efficiency of 

 98 per cent, might by the progress of electrical 

 science be increased fourfold! This, I am 

 afraid, is more or less typical of the highly 

 educated classical man's appreciation of the 

 law of conservation of energy; and he is, save 

 the mark, to be our minister, or proconsul, and 

 the conservator of our national resources. It 

 is not surprising, therefore, that in connection 

 with a subject which for several weeks occu- 

 pied a great space in the newspapers, and is 

 jiow agitating a large section of the commu- 

 nity, the nationalization of our coal mines, 

 there was not a single word, except perhaps a 

 causal vague reference in the report of the 

 chairman, to the question, which is intimately 

 bound up with any solution of the problem 

 which statesmen may adopt, I mean the ques- 

 tion of the economic utilization, in the inter- 

 ests of the country at large, of this great in- 

 heritance which nature has bestowed upon us. 



In short, are Tom, Dick and Harry, if we may 

 so refer to noble and other eoalowners, and to 

 our masters the miners, to remain free to waste 

 or to conserve at their own sweet will, or to 

 exploit as they please, this necessity of the 

 country's existence? 



The fact is that until scientific education 

 has gone forward far beyond the point it has 

 yet reached, until it has become a living force 

 in the world of polities and statesmanship, we 

 shall hardly escape the ruin of our country. 

 The business men will not save us ; as has been 

 said with much truth, the products of modern 

 business methods are to a great extent slums 

 and millionaires. It lies to a great extent with 

 scientific men themselves to see that reform 

 is forthcoming; and more power to the guild 

 of science and to any other agency which can 

 help to bring about this much-needed result. 



While scientifically educated men, whether 

 doing special work or acting as officers, have 

 been held of far slighter account in the serv- 

 ices than they ought to have been, for physi- 

 cists as such there has been little or no recog- 

 nition, except, I believe, when they happened 

 to be ranked as research chemists! How did 

 this happen? Why, the various trades as- 

 serted themselves, and the result was a suffi- 

 ciently long list of " reserved occupations," a 

 list remarkable both for its inclusions and for 

 its exclusions. There was, for example, a class 

 of " opticians," many of whom have no knowl- 

 edge of optics worth mentioning. They are 

 merely traders. One of these, for example, the 

 proprietor of a business, made a plaintive ap- 

 peal to myself as to how he could determine 

 the magnifying powers of certain field-glasses 

 which he wished the Ministry of Munitions to 

 purchase. But for a young scientific man, 

 even if he were an eminent authority on theo- 

 retical and practical optics, but who was not in 

 the trade, there was no place. 



Research chemists received their recogni- 

 tion in consequence of the existence of the in- 

 stitute of chemistry. I am extremely glad to 

 find that something is now being done to 

 found an institute of physics. I hope this 

 movement will be successful, and that it will 

 be thoroughly practical and efficient. I hope 



