October 3, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



543 



of high-class scieutifie work corresponds to 

 the hundredfold application of money to 

 its production. Nor will it be of less in- 

 terest to the people of this country to ob- 

 serve the results obtained from that 

 moiety of Dr. Carnegie's gift to Scotland 

 which is to be applied to the promotion of 

 scientific research. 



APPLIED CHEMISTET, ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 



The Diplomatic and Consular reports 

 published from time to time by the Foreign 

 Office are usually too belated to be of much 

 use to business men, but they sometimes con- 

 tain information concerning what is done 

 in foreign countries which affords food for 

 reflection. One of these reports, issued a 

 year ago, gives a very good account of 

 the German arrangements and provisions 

 for scientific training, and of the enormous 

 commercial demand for the services of 

 men who have passed successfully through 

 the universities and technical high schools, 

 as well as of the wealth that has accraed 

 to Germany through the systematic appli- 

 cation of scientific proficiency to the ordi- 

 nary business of life. 



Taking these points in their order, I have 

 thought it a matter of great interest to ob- 

 tain a comparative view of chemical equip- 

 ment in this country and in Germany, and 

 I am indebted to Professor Henderson, of 

 Glasgow, who last year became the secre- 

 tary of a committee of this Association of 

 which Professor Armstrong is chairman, 

 for statistics referring to this country, 

 which enable a comparison to be broadly 

 made. The author of the consular report 

 estimates that in 1901 there were 4,500 

 trained chemists employed in Gei-man 

 works, the number having risen to this 

 point from 1,700 employed twenty-five 

 years earlier. It is difficult to give per- 

 fectly accurate figures . for this country, 

 but a liberal estimate places the number 

 of works chemists at 1,500, while at the 



very outside it cannot be put higher than 

 somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000. In 

 other words, we cannot show in the United 

 Kingdom, notwithstanding the immense 

 range of the chemical industries in which 

 we once stood prominent, more than one 

 third of the professional staff employed 

 in Germany. It may perhaps be thought 

 or hoped that we make up in quality for 

 our defect in quantity, but unfortunately 

 this is not the ease. On the contrary, the 

 German chemists are, on the average, as 

 superior in technical training and acquire- 

 ments as they are numerically. Details 

 are given in the report of the training of 

 633 chemists employed in German works. 

 Of these, 69 per cent, hold the degree of 

 Ph.D., about 10 per cent, hold the diploma 

 of a technical high school, and about 5 

 per cent, hold both qualifications. That 

 is to say 84 per cent, have received a thor- 

 oughly systematic and complete chemical 

 training, and 74 per cent, of these add the 

 advantages of a university career. Com- 

 pare with this the information furnished 

 by 500 chemists in British works. Of 

 these only 21 per cent, are graduates, while 

 about 10 per cent, hold the diploma of a 

 college. Putting the case as high as we 

 can, and ignoring the more practical and 

 thorough training of the German universi- 

 ties, which give their degrees for work 

 done, and not for questions asked iand 

 answered on paper, we have only 81 per 

 cent, of systematically trained chemists 

 against 84 per cent, in German works. It 

 ought to be mentioned that about 21 per 

 cent, of the 500 are fellows or associates of 

 the Institute of Chemistry, whatever that 

 may amount to in practice, but of these a 

 very large number have already been ac- 

 counted for under the heads of graduates 

 and holders of diplomas. These figures, 

 which I suspect are much too favorable on 

 the British side, unmistakably point to the 

 prevalence among employers in this coun- 



