748 THE PLACE OF RESEARCH IN EDUCATION. 



but the fact is none the less an illustration of the absence from England 

 of thrifty habits such as characterize other nations. 



Again, to illustrate why we are beaten by others, let me refer to the 

 fate that has befallen what was formerly an important English indus- 

 try — the manufacture of colors from coal tar, which is now practically 

 in the hands of the Germans and Swiss, so much so that Dr. Caro, the 

 chief living authority on these matters, in addressing the German 

 Chemical Society a couple of years ago, was able to refer to it as a 

 German national industry. 



It was established in 1856 at Sudbury, near Harrow, by Perkin, who 

 discovered the first aniline color in the course of a research which he 

 was carrying out, with purely scientific objects in view, under the 

 direction of Hofmann, then professor in the Eoyal College of Chem- 

 istry, in Oxford street, London. Soon afterwards the important firm 

 of Simpson, Maull & Nicholson was founded at Hackney Wick — Nich- 

 olson being another of Hofmann's pupils. Although similar works 

 were erected in France and Germany, the mam business remained in 

 English hands during perhaps twenty years. Meanwhile Dr. Griess, 

 chemist throughout his life to the celebrated brewers at Burton-on- 

 Trent, Messrs. Allsopp, was carrying on researches on diazo com- 

 pounds, which he had begun as a student in Germany — one of the 

 most remarkable series of scientific researches ever made; but these 

 did not meet with full appreciation until 1876. In this year the firm of 

 Williams, Thomas & Dower, of Brentford, introduced certain azo colors 

 into the market which had been made in their works under the direction 

 of a most accomplished Swiss chemist, Dr. O. N. Witt, strictly in accord- 

 ance with Griess's prescriptions. The importance of the step thus 

 taken was not fully apparent here, but it was in Germany. Dr. Caro, a 

 member of the now world-renowned Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik, 

 near Mannheim on the Ehine, who had formerly been chemist to Eob- 

 erts, Dale & Co., in Manchester, the personal friend of Griess, had 

 been working in the same direction as Witt, and his firm shortly after- 

 wards brought out azo colors similar to those manufactured by the 

 English firm. This time the seed had fallen upon fruitful soil; the 

 Germans were theoretical as well as practical, and at once saw that 

 the application of Griess's discoveries was likely to be productive of 

 practical consequences. They largely increased their scientific staff, 

 research became the business of the works, and the industry expanded 

 at an extraordinary rate, while the English manufacturers, remaining 

 unteachable, and having no proper scientific staff in their employ, were 

 simply snuffed out. 



And the story has yet another side. You have all heard of the turkey- 

 red or madder dyes, formerly obtained from the madder plant, which 

 was very largely grown in France, Holland, and Turkey. In 1868, two 

 German chemists prepared alizarin, which is the chief constituent of 

 madder, artificially from anthracene, a substance contained in coal tar. 



