918 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1043 



not dominate the university system, the 

 task of arousing an adequate appreciation 

 of the enormous benefits which sci- 

 ence can render is a far easier one. We 

 must have, first of all, a widespread inter- 

 est in science and some comprehension of 

 its problems and methods. A general 

 course on evolution, given to all college 

 students, should be of great service as an 

 entering wedge. More students might thus 

 be led to take science courses, while those 

 who specialize in the humanities could gain 

 a better conception of what science means. 

 The rapid development of research in our 

 universities and technical schools promises 

 to infiuence the faculties of our colleges, 

 where a man's success as a teacher will be 

 materially enhanced if he is also a producer 

 of new knowledge. Thus the future is 

 promising in the educational field. 



On the side of our manufacturers, who 

 are eager to adopt the most efficient meth- 

 ods, the outlook is equally favorable, as 

 President Little of the American Chemical 

 Society showed so effectively in his address on 

 "Industrial Research in America."^* Many 

 great firms are establishing large research 

 laboratories, where problems of all kinds 

 are under investigation. The development 

 within the past few years of Taylor's effi- 

 ciency system is another indication that the 

 advantages of scientific methods are being 

 grasped and applied in the arts. But the 

 opportunities in this direction are almost 

 endless, and the National Academy would 

 do well to devise ways and means of con- 

 vincing not only the large manufacturers, 

 but the small manufacturers as well, of the 

 industrial importance of scientific research. 

 Lectures on recent advances in engineer- 

 ing, by European and American leaders, 

 should have a powerful influence if care- 

 fully planned and effectively illustrated. 

 Parsons on the steam turbine,^^ Marconi on 



14 Science, 38, pp. 643-656, 1913. 



wireless telegraphy,^^ Goethals on the Pan- 

 ama Canal, would attract large audiences 

 and appeal in published form to a wide 

 public. 



But while the advantages resulting from 

 ingenuity and invention and the best prac- 

 tise of engineering should certainly be 

 brought out in the course of lectures I now 

 have in mind, the improvement of manu- 

 factured products by research methods, and 

 the potential industrial value of pure sci- 

 ence are the points which should be empha- 

 sized. "We have a long way to go before 

 any single manufacturing firm employs 

 seven hundred qualified chemists, as the 

 combined chemical factories of Elberfeld, 

 Ludwigshafen and Treptow do. The su- 

 premacy in this field of Germany, which 

 produced chemicals valued at $3,750,000,000 

 in 1907, is directly due to the carefully 

 directed research of an army of chemists, 

 who learned the methods of investigation 

 in the universities and technical schools.^* 

 The Berlin Academy of Sciences has also 

 contributed in an important way to this re- 

 sult, through van't Hoff's investigations of 

 the Stassfurth salt deposits. The recent 

 rapid development of our own chemical 

 industries leads us to hope that similar 

 advances may soon be achieved in the 

 United States. In electrical engineering, 

 at least, we are already making comparable 

 progress. 



But the average man of business is much 

 better able to appreciate the value of re- 

 search directly applied to the improvement 

 of manufactures than to comprehend the 

 more fundamental importance of pure sci- 

 ence. We must show how the investiga- 

 tions of Faraday, pursued for the pure love 



15 Lectures before the Royal Institution, 1911. 



16 In 1910 the Nobel prize for chemistry went 

 to Germany for the sixth time, thus giving to a 

 single country sixty per cent, of all the Nobel 

 prizes for chemistry awarded up to that date. 



