Concerning the larger problems of engineering research, Professor Osborne Reynolds, of Owens College, Manchester, says:—
“Every one who has paid attention to the history of mechanical progress must have been impressed by the smallness in number of recorded attempts to decide the broader questions in engineering by systematic experiments, as well as by the great results which, in the long run, have apparently followed as the effect of these few researches. I say ‘apparently,’ because it is certain that there have been other researches which probably, on account of failure to attain some immediate object, have not been recorded, although they may have yielded valuable experience which, though not put on record, has, before it was forgotten, led to other attempts. But even discounting such lost researches it is very evident that mechanical science was in the past very much hampered by the want of sufficient inducement to the undertaking of experiments to settle questions of the utmost importance to scientific advance, but which have not promised pecuniary results, scientific questions which involved a greater sacrifice of time and money than the individuals could afford. The mechanical engineers recently induced Mr. Beauchamp Towers to carry out his celebrated researches on the friction of lubricated journals, the results of which research certainly claim notice as one of the most important steps in mechanical science.”
Lord Rayleigh has said:—
“The present development of electricity on a large scale depends as much upon the incandescent lamp as the dynamo. The success of these lamps demands a very perfect vacuum—not more than one millionth of the normal quantity of air should remain. It is interesting to recall that in 1865 such vacua were rare even in the laboratory of the physicist. It is pretty safe to say that these wonderful results would never have been accomplished had practical applications alone been in view. The way was prepared by an army of men whose main object was the advancement of knowledge, and who could scarcely have imagined that the processes which they had elaborated would soon be in use on a commercial scale and entrusted to the hands of ordinary workmen.” He adds:—“The requirements of practice react in the most healthy manner upon scientific electricity. Just as in former days the science received a stimulus from the application to telegraphy, under which everything relating to measurement on a small scale acquired an importance and development for which we might otherwise have had long to wait, so now the requirements of electric lighting are giving rise to a new development of the art of measurement on a large scale, which cannot fail to prove of scientific as well as practical importance.”
Regarding the territory likely to yield most fruit to the researcher, he observes:—“The neglected border land between two branches of knowledge is often that which best repays cultivation; or, to use a metaphor of Maxwell’s, the greatest benefits may be derived from a cross-fertilization of the sciences.”
The Example of Germany.
Why Germany leads the world in science becomes clear when we observe her co-ordination of industry with the higher education and with original research. Professor Wilhelm Ostwald has said:—“When the student in Germany has finished his university course he is still entirely free to choose between a scientific and a technical career. . . . The occupation of a technical chemist in works is very often almost as scientific in its character as in a university laboratory. . . . The organization of the power of invention in manufactures on a large scale in Germany is, as far as I know, unique in the world’s history, and is the very marrow of our splendid triumphs. Each large works has the greater part of its scientific staff—and there are often more than a hundred doctors of philosophy in a single manufactory—occupied not in the management of the manufacture, but in making inventions. The research laboratory in such works is only different from one in a university from its being more splendidly and sumptuously fitted. I have heard from the business managers of such works that they have not infrequently men who have worked for four years without practical success; but if they have known them to possess ability they keep them notwithstanding, and in most cases with ultimate success sufficient to pay all expenses.”
Mr. Carnegie’s Aid to Original Research.
In 1902 Mr. Andrew Carnegie, with a gift of ten million dollars, founded in Washington the Carnegie Institution for Original Research. Its president is Dr. R. S. Woodward, formerly of Columbia University, New York. One of its first enterprises was to establish at Cold Spring Harbor, New York, a station for experimental evolution directed by Dr. Charles B. Davenport. Here will be extended the remarkable experiments of Dr. Hugo de Vries, of Amsterdam, who discovered that the large-flowered evening primrose suddenly gives rise to new species. Other experiments are in progress with regard to the variability of insects, the hybridization of plants and animals. A marine biological laboratory has been established at Tortugas, Florida; and a desert botanical laboratory at Tucson, Arizona. In its grants for widely varied purposes the policy of the Institution is clear: only those inquiries are aided which give promise of fruit, and in every case the grantee requires to be a man of proved ability, care being taken not to duplicate work already in hand elsewhere, or to essay tasks of an industrial character. Experience has already shown it better to confine research to a few large projects rather than to aid many minor investigations with grants comparatively small.
