October 13, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



535 



for research work. This amounts annually to 

 between $250 and $300. In addition to this 

 the State Historical Society has a fund of 

 $12,000 from Mr. and Mrs. Hollister for a 

 pharmaceutical library. The income of this 

 fund is not being used for the purchase of 

 books, but for historical research in pharmacy 

 and publication of the results. Temporary 

 grants, such as the sum of $500 for a research 

 fellowship by the Association of Flavoring 

 Mfg. of the United States, I suppose fall out- 

 side the field covered by the report of the 

 committee. 



Edward Keemers 



QUOTATIONS 



SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY 



The privy council report on scientific and 

 industrial research, of which we publish a sum- 

 mary this morning, is a very able document. 

 It reveals a firm and comprehensive grasp of 

 the subject. To begin with, it gives an ac- 

 count of the existing institution for promoting 

 industry by science. In the National Phys- 

 ical Laboratory, the Engineering Standards 

 Committee, the Imperial Institute, the Im- 

 perial College of Science and Technology, 

 the engineering schools of Cambridge and 

 Oxford, the technological departments of the 

 other universities and the larger technical col- 

 leges, we possessed before the war an apparatus 

 which would excite the enthusiastic admira- 

 tion of native critics if they came across it in 

 some other country where the arts of adver- 

 tisement are better understood and more effi- 

 ciently practised. It is true that the appa- 

 ratus was comparatively young, and the use 

 made of it miserably inadequate to its poten- 

 tialities and to the need; but that was due 

 to a general failure to appreciate either. It is 

 a mistake to infer that we possessed no means 

 for developing industrial science because a 

 poor use was made of them through conserva- 

 tism, lack of insight, and the obsession of 

 cheap imports deceptively labelled " free 

 trade." The war has changed all that. It has 

 made manifest the need of applying far more 

 energetically the means we have and of sup- 

 plementing them, as the present report points 



out. The outbreak of war found us unable to 

 produce at home many essential materials 

 and articles for carrying it on; and since then 

 it has become clear that the future mainte- 

 nance of our industries in peace demands a 

 new attitude and new efforts in this field on 

 the part of all concerned. This is the suffi- 

 cient reason for undertaking the reorganiza- 

 tion and development of industrial science 

 now, while we are still at war. 



The two main things required are financial 

 support and the cooperation of manufacturers. 

 Of the two the latter is, in our opinion, both 

 the more important and the more difficult to 

 secure. If it is effectively secured, the rest 

 will follow ; if it is not, nothing else will be of 

 much use. Our manufacturers have not been 

 wholly indifferent to science. The steel in- 

 dustry of Sheffield leads the world in the appli- 

 cation of scientific metallurgy to commercial 

 production. Nowhere do the laboratory and 

 the workshop cooperate more closely or with 

 better results. And in recent years other 

 branches of industry have been making a 

 gradual advance in the same direction. But 

 the great bulk of our manufacturing interests 

 have stood aloof and clung to the old. So have 

 the labor interests, which are still more ob- 

 structive to change. The British workman's 

 dislike of novelty and his power of resistance 

 are an insufficiently recognized element in the 

 British manufacturer's conservatism. It is 

 obviously useless to spend money on discov- 

 eries and new processes if the attempt to apply 

 them leads to strife. This prospect is enough 

 to deter men who might otherwise be inclined 

 to take up research and experiment in their 

 works, and it must be taken into account. 

 But it is not the chief cause of manufacturing 

 inertia. Nor is the small size of many busi- 

 ness concerns, to which the report refers. 

 Small concerns can not undertake large, far- 

 reaching researches of a fundamental order; 

 but that is no reason for general indifference 

 or hostility to research. They can carry on 

 scientific work of a different kind with a 

 direct practical bearing on their own business. 

 Some do, but they are few. In Germany they 

 are many. The notion that works there which 



