The Appreciation of Science by German Manufacturers

Abstract

RECENTLY,when giving evidence before the Gresham University Commission, I had occasion to speak of the attention devoted in German chemical laboratories to higher studies, and when asked what were the results of this instruction I drew attention to an article published a short time before in that most enterprising of chemical periodicals, the Chemiker-Zeitung, edited by Dr. Krause. In this article a description is given of the research laboratory provided to accommodate six and twenty skilled chemists, attached to the works of the Farbenfabriken, vormals F. Bayer and Co., of Elberfeld, who are manufacturers of dye-stuffs and other products derivable from tars. I told the Commissioners that if, at the present time, it were desired to fit up a research laboratory for chemical purposes in London, we could not do better than take these plans and reproduce them in their entirety, and that we should then, I believed, have reason to congratulate ourselves on possessing the best-appointed public research olaboratory in the world.