590 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 722 



the principal reason is— the limited de- 

 mand for trained chemists on the part of 

 the manufacturers. 



Even of the small number of those who 

 leave our teaching institutions fairly well 

 trained in research, how many have a 

 chance of passing into works and directly 

 advancing applied science? A very small 

 proportion indeed. Most of the better 

 ones drift into other posts, become demon- 

 strators, emigrate— anything rather than 

 wait on with the prospect of accepting 

 as works-chemist a salary which, meager 

 though it be, may be stopped altogether 

 if dividends are low. 



With whom rests the responsibility for 

 this state of affairs ? Is it with the teach- 

 ers, and, if so, is it because they are in- 

 capable of training chemists or because 

 their system is at fault 1 



To answer this question it is necessary in 

 the first place to arrive at some conclusions 

 as to the kind of training which is required 

 for the future works-chemist. On consult- 

 ing the opinions of the manufacturers it 

 would seem that they attach great im- 

 portance to what is called the "practical 

 side"; they believe that, in addition to a 

 knowledge of theoretical chemistry, the 

 prospective works-chemist should also have 

 some acquaintance with engineering, 

 should understand the apparatus and ma- 

 chinery used in the particular manufactur- 

 ing operations with which he is going to 

 deal, and should have had practical experi- 

 ence in working the given process. It is 

 from this point of view that we build and 

 equip large technological chemistry depart- 

 ments, such as those in the Universities 

 of Birmingham and Leeds and in the Man- 

 chester Municipal School of Technology, 

 departments fitted up with complete ap- 

 paratus and machinery for carrying out 

 operations on a miniature manufacturing 

 scale. 



The arguments in favor of this view, 



that it is a hybrid chemist-engineer who 

 is required in a chemical works, seem to 

 me to be fundamentally unsound, and the 

 kind of training suggested by them for the 

 works-chemist can only result in the pro- 

 duction of a sort of combined analytical 

 machine and foreman. A two or three 

 years' course of science, followed by one 

 year's practical work in the dye-house, in 

 paper-making, or in some other tech- 

 nological department, is quite inadequate 

 if the student trained in this way is ex- 

 pected to do anything beyond routine 

 analytical work and supervision. We can 

 not possibly expect such a poorly trained 

 jack-of-aU-trades to run a chemical works 

 successfully in the face of competition 

 directed by a large staff of scientific ex- 

 perts in chemistry and in engineering. 

 The conditions in a chemical works can not 

 be successfully imitated in a university 

 or polytechnic ; attempts to do so can only 

 lead to mistaken conclusions, and thus have 

 the effect of rendering the works-chemist 

 quite helpless when he passes from the 

 elegant models of his educational apparatus 

 to the workaday appliances of the manu- 

 factory. 



Here, it seems to me, we touch the bed- 

 rock of our trouble. The state of our 

 chemical industries must be attributed to 

 the erroneous views which have been and 

 stiU are held as to the functions, and con- 

 sequently as to the training, of a works- 

 chemist. We have failed to realize that in- 

 dustrial chemistry must be based on a 

 foundation of continuous and arduous re- 

 search work. In the past we have sent out 

 from our universities and other institu- 

 tions students who no doubt were qualified 

 to undertake routine analytical work, but 

 the great majority of whom knew nothing 

 of the methods of research. We are doing 

 the same to-day. Just when a student has 

 reached a stage at which his specialized 

 scientific training should begin his course 



