The position and prospects of chemical research in Great Britain : presidential address delivered at the Annual General Meeting of the Chemical Society, March 22nd, 1907 / by Raphael Meldola.

  • Meldola, Raphael, 1849-1915.
Date:
[1907]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The position and prospects of chemical research in Great Britain : presidential address delivered at the Annual General Meeting of the Chemical Society, March 22nd, 1907 / by Raphael Meldola. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    33/38 (page 654)
    654- right to call attention, if only for the opportunity it affords for answering certain objections to the specialisation of work rendered necessary by devotion to research. It has sometimes been urged by educational authorities whose opinions are entitled to serious consideration, that it is unfair to students at the close of their general education to place temptation in their way by furnishing means whereby they are induced to devote perhaps some years to specialised research of no bread- winning value in their ultimate career. It is not difficult to answer this objection, although there may conceivably be conscientious teachers who on this ground would discourage post-graduate research work. In the first place, if the educational value of research be admitted, as it assuredly will be, it must necessarily be limited to some special field, and if, as is so generally the case, the student on the completion of his curriculum has no definite views as to his future line of work, it is obviously impossible to specialise his researches with reference to his prospective career. We can only proceed on the general principle that research in itself is of the highest disciplinary value in whatever career the student may ultimately adopt as a chemist—whether he becomes a teacher or a technologist; it being, of course, understood that no specialisation is permitted until the general scientific education has been com- pleted on a broad and sound basis. The question is whether this principle is a sound one, and as a matter of experience I have no hesitation in answering that question in the affirmative. The faculties called forth by research work, although for the time being concentrated on one particular problem, are just those which are essential for success in any branch of our subject. The nature of the particular line of investi- gation by which those faculties have been trained is in reality a subordinate point, subject entirely to personal conditions; that is to the special nature of the work with which the professor or teacher is associated. In cases where a choice of centre is possible the research student would naturally go to that institution where the work was in a field in which he was most interested or towards which he was attracted as affording a good preparation for his future career. But even where no choice of centre is possible, and where an opportunity for continuing research work in his own college after passing through the general curriculum Is furnished by agencies such as those to which I have referred, the value of the student is enormously enhanced by the experience. The man and the subject are both gainers, and from my own knowledge of the careers of students who have availed themselves of such