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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 374. 



country. Through their specially prepared 

 men they are doing something to enlarge 

 the bounds of knowledge. To be sure, such 

 work is also being done to some extent in 

 our colleges and elsewhere, but the true 

 home of the investigator is the university. 

 This work of investigation is as important 

 as the work of training men'. What does 

 it mean? All persons with healthy minds 

 appear to agree that the world is advancing 

 and improving. We see evidences of this 

 on every side. Those results that appeal 

 most strongly to mankind are, perhaps, the 

 practical discoveries that contribute so 

 much to the health and comfort of man- 

 kind. These are so familiar that they need 

 not be recounted here. If great advances 

 are being made in the field of electricity, 

 in the field of medicine, in the field of ap- 

 plied chemistry, it is well to remember that 

 the work that lies at the foundation of these 

 advances has been done almost exclusively 

 in the universities. It woiild be interest- 

 ing to trace the history of some of these 

 advances. We should find that in nearly 

 every case the beginning can be found in 

 some university workshop where an en- 

 thusiastic professor has spent his time pry- 

 ing into the secrets of nature. Rarely does 

 the discoverer reap the tangible reward of 

 his work— that is to say, he does not get 

 rich— but what of it? He has his reward, 

 and it is at least a fair question whether his 

 reward is not higher than any that could 

 be computed in dollars and cents. 



The material value to the world of the 

 work carried on in the university labora- 

 tories cannot be over-estimated. New in- 

 dustries are constantly springing up on 

 the basis of such work. A direct connection 

 has been shown to exist between the indus- 

 trial condition of a country and the atti- 

 tude of the country towards university 

 work. It is generally accepted that the 

 principal reason why Germany occupies 

 such a high position in certain branches of 



industry, especially those founded upon 

 chemistry, is that the universities of Ger- 

 many have fostered the work of investiga- 

 tion more than those of any other country. 

 That great thinker and investigator, Liebig, 

 succeeded during the last century in im- 

 pressing upon the minds of his countrymen 

 the impoi'tance of encouraging investiga- 

 tions in the universities, and since that 

 time the German laboratories of chemistry 

 have been the leaders of the world. In Ger- 

 many the chemical industries have grown 

 to immense, almost inconceivable, propor- 

 tions. Meanwhile the corresponding indus- 

 tries of Great Britain have steadily de- 

 clined. This subject has recently been dis- 

 cussed by Arthur C. Green in an ad- 

 dress read before the British Association 

 at its meeting at Glasgow last summer. 

 The address has been republished in 

 Science, volume 2, page 7, of 1902. I call 

 the attention especially of our business men 

 to this address. I think it will show them 

 that university work in some lines at least 

 is directly and closely connected with the 

 industrial position of a country. Speaking 

 of the coal-tar industry, the author of the 

 paper referred to says : " In no other in- 

 dustry have such extraordinarily rapid 

 changes and gigantic developments taken 

 place in so short a period— developments in 

 which the scientific elucidation of abstract 

 problems has gone hand in hand with in- 

 ventive capacity, manufacturing skill, and 

 commercial enterprise; in no other indus- 

 try has the close and intimate interrelation 

 of science and practice been more clearly 

 demonstrated. ' ' And further on : " Again, 

 besides the loss of material wealth which 

 the neglect of the coal-tar trade has in- 

 volved to this country, there is yet another 

 aspect of the question which is even of more 

 importance than the commercial one. 

 There can be no doubt that the growth in 

 Germany of a highly scientific industry of 

 large and far-reaching proportion has re- 



