Mat 5, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



679 



apparently limited to the differences be- 

 tween his efSeiency of operating it and that 

 of the original owner. A business usually 

 comprises processes of making and selling 

 something at a profit, and study of the 

 making of the most modern, most im- 

 proved, most efficient, is about as essential 

 as the study of the limits of safe business 

 credits. 



I was recently informed by an officer of 

 another large manufacturing company, 

 where much chemical work is done and 

 which established a research laboratory 

 several years ago, that the most important 

 values they got from their laboratory was 

 the assurance that they were keeping ahead 

 and are at least prepared for the new, if 

 they can not always invent it themselves. 

 Incidentally, he said that from one part of 

 their research work they had produced 

 processes, etc., which had saved $800,000 a 

 year. They are at present spending in 

 their several research departments a total 

 of about $300,000 a year. 



"We hear frequent reference to the Ger- 

 man research laboratories and a brief dis- 

 cussion may be in place. For the past fifty 

 years that country has been advancing in- 

 dustrially beyond other countries. Not by 

 newly opened territories, new railroads, 

 new farm lands, new water power cities, 

 but by new technical discoveries. In fact, 

 this advance may be said to be largely 

 traceable to their apparent over-production 

 of research men by well fitted universities 

 and technical schools. Every year a few 

 hundred new doctors of science and phi- 

 losophy were thrown on the market. Most 

 of them had been well trained to think and 

 to experiment ; to work hard, and to expect 

 little. The chemical manufactories began 

 to be filled with this product and it over- 

 flowed into every other calling in Germany. 

 These well educated young men became the 

 docents, the assistants and the professors 



of all the schools of the country. They 

 worked for $300 to $500 per year. They 

 were satisfied so long as they could experi- 

 ment and study the laws of nature, because 

 of the interest in these laws instilled into 

 them by splendid teachers. This condition 

 soon began to make itself manifest in the 

 new-making of things — all sorts of chem- 

 ical compounds, all kinds of physical and 

 electrical devices. I might say that pure 

 organic chemistry at this time was acad- 

 emically most interesting. Its laws were 

 entrancing to the enthusiastic chemist and 

 consequently very many more doctors were 

 turned out who wrote organic theses than 

 any other kind. What more natural than 

 that organic chemistry should have been 

 the first to feel the stimulus? Hundreds, 

 and even thousands of new commercial 

 organic products are to be credited to these 

 men and to that time. All the modern dye 

 stuffs are in this class. Did Germany alone 

 possess the raw material for this line? No ! 

 England and America had as much of that. 

 But Germany had the prepared men and 

 made the start. 



It seems to me that America has made a 

 start in preparing men for the research 

 work of its industries. For example, it is 

 no longer necessary to go abroad to get the 

 particular training in physical chemistry 

 and electro-chemistry which a few years 

 ago was considered desirable. Advanced 

 teaching of science is little, if any more ad- 

 vanced in Germany to-day than it is in this 

 country. In my opinion the quality of our 

 research laboratories will improve as the 

 supply of home trained men increases, and 

 the laboratories of this kind will be 

 increasingly valuable when analyzed as 

 financial assets. I am certain, too, that the 

 industries will not be slow in recognizing 

 the growing value of such assets. They 

 merely want to be shown. 



Probably in most industries there are 



