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 PROFESSOR J. C. FIELDS, PH.D., F.R.S. 
 
 PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS 
 
 Royal Canadian Institute 
 
 NOVEMBER STH, 1919 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS 
 
 1920 
 
Universities, Research and Brain 
 
 Waste 
 
 PROFESSOR J. C. FIELDS, PH.D., F.R.S. 
 
 PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS 
 
 Royal Canadian Institute 
 
 NOVEMBER STH, 1919 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS 
 
 1920 
 
UNIVERSITIES, RESEARCH AND BRAIN WASTE 3 
 
 UNIVERSITIES, RESEARCH AND BRAIN WASTE 
 BY J. C. FIELDS, PH.D., F.R.S. 
 
 To the Members of the Royal Canadian Institute 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 It is my desire first of all to thank you for the honour which you 
 have conferred on me by electing me your President for the year now 
 beginning. The two years past have been prosperous ones under the 
 Presidency of Dr. J. Murray Clark. Many new members have joined 
 and the attendance at the meetings has appreciably increased. The 
 Institute has carried on its propaganda for research both in regard to 
 its application to industry and on the purely scientific side. In its 
 campaign it has been aided by a succession of eminent lecturers from 
 the United States. The activities of the Institute will continue to be 
 directed by the same policy as hitherto and I may say that arrange- 
 ments have been made for a group of exceptionally able men to lecture 
 under its auspices in Toronto during the coming winter. 
 
 With your permission I shall now turn my attention to the con- 
 sideration of the subject which I have selected for my address this 
 evening "Universities, Research and Brain Waste." 
 
 Whatever the undeveloped resources of a country may be the greatest 
 of all its resources is the brain of the people and more especially the 
 brain of the exceptionally gifted. Other resources in fact are made 
 available only by combination with this primary resource. The wealth 
 of the race consists of the thoughts of a limited number of men accumu- 
 lated through the generations. By means of these thoughts, or certain 
 of them, we arc able to reproduce things. It takes no great mental 
 effort to realize that of all the material products of man's hands which 
 existed fifty years ago, that which persists to-day is negligible. 
 
 There exists a body of men whose function it is to increase the 
 wealth of the race, to add new thoughts to the fund already accumulated. 
 These are the so-called research workers. Men of research inclination 
 there have been in all countries and in all periods. In recent times, 
 however, the number has increased greatly. Certain universities in 
 America, and a large proportion of those in Europe, regard it as one of 
 their functions to prepare men to do research. Many of the European 
 universities regard it as their chief function. 
 
4 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL CANADIAN INSTITUTE 
 
 The research workers are makers of modern history as no other 
 body of men are. The difference between the conditions under which 
 our forefathers lived three hundred years ago and those under which 
 we live to-day is due to the research workers. The layman little realizes 
 what an influence individual men among these research workers exercise 
 upon his daily life. In ordinary conversation the name of Shakespeare 
 is heard more frequently than that of Newton and students of the great 
 dramatist will be surprised to be told that Shakespeare as a factor in 
 determining their lives is a bagatelle compared to Newton. The thought 
 of the great scientist, as a matter of fact, permeates our civilization 
 and can be traced distinctly in a multitude of conditions which surround 
 our every-day life. To justify our statement, it suffices to refer briefly 
 to Newton's discoveries of the calculus and the law of gravitation. The 
 calculus is the basis of the greater part of higher mathematical analysis. 
 It is the most powerful of all instruments in handling geometrical 
 problems and it has opened up new territories in geometry which are 
 all its own. What I want more particularly here to refer to, however, 
 is the role which the calculus plays in connection with physical pheno- 
 mena. Its aid is invoked in questions which relate to motion, light, heat, 
 electricity. The principles of dynamics are formulated in terms of its 
 notation. Unfortunately it has had a share in the development of 
 modern artillery, for the theory of projectiles is an application of the 
 calculus to the law of gravitation. It has had its place in the advances 
 which have brought us the electric light, the trolley, the power house, 
 telegraphy and telephony, both with and without wire. When we read 
 the despatches and cablegrams in our morning paper we do not pause to 
 remind ourselves that the thought of Newton is one of the factors which 
 has made this possible. No more does it occur to the baseball enthusiast 
 that he is under any debt to Newton when he stands before the news- 
 paper office down town and scans the latest baseball bulletin. 
 
 Transportation by sea, by land and by air, has much for which to 
 thank Newton. The calculus had nothing to do with the invention of 
 the steam engine by James Watt. It has, however, done important 
 service during the last half century or more in handling problems relating 
 to steam engines and turbines where fundamental principles have been 
 involved. It has had its effect on naval construction. It is involved 
 in the general question of the relation between shape, power and speed 
 in connection with a vessel. It is essential to the study of the strains 
 and stresses in a ship's members. Navigation, too, depends on astro* 
 nomical data the obtaining of which involves the use of the calculus. 
 Our clocks and watches are regulated by data so obtained. It has had 
 
UNIVERSITIES, RESEARCH AND BRAIN WASTE 5 
 
 its share in the development of the automobile engine. It proves itself 
 useful in problems connected with hydraulic elevators. It played a 
 fundamental role in solving the initial difficulties connected with flight, 
 and later on it was an essential instrument in solving the problem of 
 stability in relation to aeroplanes. It renders valuable assistance in 
 connection with the finding of necessary data for the putting up of large 
 steel bridges and for erecting other engineering structures. Physical 
 chemistry makes extensive use of the formulae of the calculus. The 
 physiologist, too, when he is confronted with problems in surface tension 
 
 is forced to call in its aid. 
 
 % 
 
 The same godlike instrument enables the astronomer to follow the 
 earth and the planets in their courses about the sun and to keep track 
 of the moon in its more devious path around the earth as the latter 
 whirls about the sun. It renders it possible for him to measure the 
 combined and varying tugs of the sun and moon on the waters of the 
 earth and with its formulae he traces the paths of the particles of water 
 that go to make up the tides as they travel across the oceans of the earth. 
 By the aid of this instrument applied to the solar system, on the assump- 
 tion that it is regulated by the law of gravitation, Adams and Leverrier, 
 led thereto by certain inequalities noted in the motion of the planet 
 Uranus, deduced the existence and location of the planet Neptune and 
 foretold its mass and orbit. 
 
 Clerk Maxwell it was who formulated the theory of electricity and 
 magnetism in terms of the calculus. Herz devised the experiment 
 which verified the existence of certain waves in the ether predicted by 
 Maxwell from his theory and Marconi utilized these waves for wireless 
 telegraphy. In later times we have become familiar with X-rays, 
 radio-activity and the theory of electrons. The physicist studies 
 the relative positions of the atoms in a molecule and going beyond dis- 
 tributes the atom itself into electrons. He tells us wonderful stories 
 about the energy locked up in an atom and Sir Oliver Lodge informs us 
 that if this atomic energy were only available a ton of matter day by 
 day would suffice to supply the needs of Great Britain. Going 
 over from the infinitely small to the infinitely great that eminent Dutch 
 astronomer and hardy generalizer, Kapteyn, has launched a scheme 
 to study the structure of the universe. His nearest material is over 
 25 trillion miles away but his scheme is under way and he is steadily 
 accumulating his data. At some stage in the development of all the 
 branches of physical science here referred to Newton's thought has 
 played a role and the calculus has proved itself a helpful instrument in 
 regions undreamed of by its discoverer. 
 
6 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL CANADIAN INSTITUTE 
 
 In what precedes I have touched on the physical sciences and the 
 application of the calculus to them. I have mentioned but a few 
 among the many great names associated with the development of these 
 sciences. I have wished in a few words to do the impossible, to suggest 
 to the layman by an illustration something of the reach and importance 
 of research, to indicate how the work of one research man connects up 
 with that of another and to shadow forth how intimately the life work 
 of some great thinker may be related to our daily life and activities 
 without our being conscious of the fact. Newton himself, it may be 
 pointed out, was not such an unconditioned being that his work was 
 independent of that of the workers who preceded him. The discovery 
 of the calculus was already a foregone conclusion after Des Cartes had 
 invented analytical geometry. In the hands of a lesser genius, however, 
 its scope would not have been as fully appreciated and immediate results 
 would have been more meagre. I wish that I could convey briefly to 
 the laymen in my audience some conception of the nature of the calculus 
 but this is not within my power to do. That will perhaps not be sur- 
 prising in view of the fact that a hundred lectures are devoted to intro- 
 ducing the honours students in mathematics and physics to the subject 
 in their second year and that a considerable portion of their time in 
 their third and fourth years is utilized in increasing their appreciation 
 of its scope and application. 
 
 In the foregoing I have said nothing about the immense contribu- 
 tions of chemistry to the health, wealth and comfort of mankind. I 
 have not referred to the debt we owe to biology, botany, bacteriology, 
 geology, and various other branches of science. I have pointed out the 
 successive dependence of one man's work on another's. I would draw 
 attention also to the simultaneous co-operative character of scientific 
 work. For hundreds of research workers in different parts of the world 
 are at the same time busied on the same problems or on related prob- 
 lems. They keep in touch with one another's work principally through 
 highly specialized journals which the layman never sees. In these 
 journals as a rule the results of their investigations are published. To 
 expedite matters it has been found necessary to devise certain aids. 
 One of these is the International Catalogue of Scientific Literature 
 which, before the war, appeared annually in seventeen volumes, each 
 volume corresponding to a separate branch of science. Besides an 
 alphabetical list of authors each volume contains an elaborately classified 
 subject index. This, however, in view of the mass of material being 
 turned out, does not suffice for the needs of the research worker who 
 wants speedy orientation with regard to everything which may have a 
 
UNIVERSITIES, RESEARCH AND BRAIN WASTE 7 
 
 bearing on his own special line of work. For this something more than 
 a mere classification of titles is needed. Some further indication as to 
 the contents of an article is necessary. The need here referred to is 
 more or less satisfactorily cared for in different branches of science. In 
 physics and electrical engineering, for example, we have what are 
 called "Science Abstracts". 
 
 The need of orientation will be better realized by the layman when 
 he is told that the number of titles listed in the seventeen volumes of the 
 International Catalogue for the year 1912 was 67,926. The great bulk 
 of the literature here referred to is of research character and its authors 
 number up in the tens of thousands. The individuals in this army of 
 investigators vary greatly in ability. Many of them are handicapped 
 by the conditions under which they have to work. The products of 
 their efforts are, of course, very unequal. In the aggregate, however, 
 the importance of the activities of the army of research workers to the 
 welfare of the nations can hardly be overestimated. How many of the 
 nations, how many of the individuals who go to make up the nations, 
 realize this fact? How many of our own people appreciate it ade- 
 quately? 
 
 That does not exist which I do not see is the most prevalent and most 
 disastrous of all fallacies. Every day men in high places act on this 
 fallacy. It shapes important policies and determines great issues. It 
 came very near being the undoing of Great Britain when the opening 
 of the war found her scientifically unprepared, for her statesmen in 
 taking counsel had been accustomed to leaving out of account science 
 which, as it proved, was the most important factor in the situation. It 
 is my own conviction and that of all scientists with whom I have dis- 
 cussed the matter that the modern research movement is the greatest 
 intellectual movement in the history of the human race. How many 
 Governments act as if this conviction had taken hold on them? In 
 how many of the universities on this continent have those in authority 
 seen the vision? 
 
 The natural home of research is in the universities. There most of 
 the fundamental discoveries in science have been made in the recent past. 
 Let us hope that this may continue to be the case in the future. The 
 highest functions of a university are on the one hand to provide place 
 and opportunity for the research worker to carry on and make his dis- 
 coveries and on the other hand to train young men of selected ability 
 to use their creative faculties. This is more fully appreciated in certain 
 European countries than in America. 
 
8 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL CANADIAN INSTITUTE 
 
 In Germany, at least before the war, no man was appointed to a 
 university staff who had not proved himself to be intellectually pro- 
 ductive. Once appointed he could lecture as little or as much as he 
 pleased. He could devote practically all his time to research if he was 
 so inclined. He was relieved of financial worry. He did not need to 
 preoccupy himself with what, under certain eventualities, would become 
 of his wife and family. Everything was provided for in advance so 
 that, with a mind at ease, he could concentrate all his powers on his 
 science. On the instructional side the German university had parti- 
 cularly in mind the student of exceptional ability. It put no obstacle 
 in the way of admitting others. It was not a difficult matter to obtain 
 a degree. The arrangements, however, were made with a view to the 
 needs of the more highly gifted. These were trained to be research 
 workers and those who distinguished themselves most in research were 
 the ones who received preferment later on. The intellectually pro- 
 ductive men then enjoyed a certain prestige in Germany before the war. 
 This was overshadowed, however, by the factitious prestige attached to 
 the military uniform, and we know how the war-mad militarists of 
 Potsdam prostituted German science and purposed by its aid to sub- 
 jugate the rest of the world. 
 
 In France perhaps more than in any other country is intellectual 
 achievement honoured. An intellectual aristocracy, according to Pro- 
 fessor Le Chatelier, is essential to the French democracy. This means 
 that intellect is trained to the service of the State. In peace times 
 membership in one of the five academies which constitute the Institut 
 de France, a purely intellectual distinction, is the highest honour to 
 which a Frenchman can aspire. The Institut, it may be noted,' through 
 its Academies disposes of considerable sums as rewards for notable 
 intellectual achievements. The Academic des Sciences in particular 
 has a long list of prizes which are awarded from time to time to scientists 
 who have solved specified problems or who have made advances along 
 certain lines in Science. Living, the creative thinker is regarded as the 
 glory of his country. When he departs this life his remains are buried 
 in the Pantheon with funeral rites which vie with those accorded to a 
 President of the Republic. 
 
 In the boy of promise, too, France sees the future man and treats 
 him as a potential asset. He does not need to stop short in his education 
 because his parents are poor. There are bourses awaiting him from the 
 Commune, the Department, and the Government. Where his gifts 
 justify it, he will be provided with the best education which the country 
 can offer. In the advanced classes of certain of the Lyce"es as many as- 
 
UNIVERSITIES, RESEARCH AND BRAIN WASTE 9 
 
 75% of the pupils hold bourses. The Government maintains schools 
 of university grade for genius. Entrance to these schools is by com- 
 petitive examination and the number to be admitted each year is 
 limited. Such schools are the Ecole Normale Super ieure and the Ecole 
 Polytechnique. In the Ecole Normale literary and scientific studies 
 are both provided for. On the literary side the number admitted 
 annually is limited to 30, on the scientific side to 22. The number of 
 candidates for admission in science is normally about 150, all young 
 men of exceptional ability. Of these then about 85% are rejected. It 
 is to be noted also that of those accepted many will have made the 
 attempt more than once. Conditions are pretty much the same in 
 regard to the literary candidates. The students at the Ecole Normale 
 follow the lectures at the Sorbonne. They also have special courses of 
 their own, which are sometimes supplementary to those of the Sorbonne. 
 They live in residence, study under direction, have a library at their 
 disposition and work in their own laboratories. After three years in 
 residence, the students are again sifted by examination. The most 
 gifted are directed toward the career of the university professoriate. 
 The others supply a brilliant nucleus for the teaching staffs of the Lycees. 
 Those students whose way has been paid by the Government are under 
 obligation to take service with it for ten years and it in turn is under 
 obligation to furnish them with employment. Half the students at the 
 Ecole Normale are under these conditions. 
 
 The number admitted annually to the Ecole Polytechnique is in the 
 neighbourhood of 200. These would normally constitute about 20% of 
 those who write on the examination for entrance. The course at this 
 great engineering school lasts for two years, after which the student is sent 
 on to the Ecole des Mines, the Ecole Centrale, the Ecole d'Artillerie or 
 some other school for a practical course. Of this school Joffre, Foch, 
 Petain, Nivelle, and others of the more notable French generals in the war 
 just past are graduates. It was with a certain satisfaction that one 
 learned that a Frenchman had been appointed General-in-Chief of the 
 Allied Armies ; for it was practically certain that he would be a graduate 
 of the Ecole Polytechnique. This would be a sure guarantee of his intel- 
 lectual calibre, for he would be select among the select. One could rest 
 assured, too, that on top of his course at the Ecole Polytechnique he 
 would have received an advanced technical training proportioned to his 
 natural ability. 
 
 There is a strong mathematical trend to the training given in the 
 Ecole Polytechnique and it is quite remarkable what a number of 
 famous mathematicians have been turned out by this school. It is 
 
10 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL CANADIAN INSTITUTE 
 
 hardly necessary to add that graduates of the school whose way has been 
 paid by the Government are under obligation to take service with the 
 Government. The Government, too, finds good use for their services, 
 not alone as officers but also im inportant civil capacities. 
 
 The candidate who fails to obtain entrance to the cole Normale or 
 the ficole Polyt6chnique may have better success with the ficole des 
 Mines or the ficole Centrale, schools also with limited admission. In 
 any case there will be nothing to prevent him hearing lectures at the 
 Sorbonne, for attendance on the courses given there is not limited as 
 at the other schools I have mentioned. 
 
 In England it will shortly be as in France that the boy of exceptional 
 ability will be able to pursue his studies as far as he will however indigent 
 the circumstances of his parents may be. At present there is nothing to 
 prevent him completing his course in the secondary school, for plenty 
 of scholarships to that end are offered by the county councils. There 
 are also more than enough scholarships in classics for entrance to the 
 universities. In science and moderns, however, such scholarships are 
 lacking. The funds to redress the balance here have been promised, so 
 I am told, and it will not be long until arrangements have been made 
 which will provide for carrying the boy of outstanding ability right 
 through the secondary school and the university, or higher technical 
 institution of university grade, and training him for research if his 
 tastes incline that way. 
 
 The experience of the Naval Dockyard Schools in England furnishes 
 an interesting commentary on the amount of brain waste there must be 
 in classes of the community where better educational opportunities 
 are not available. The schools here referred to are conducted for the 
 benefit of shipwright apprentices who work in the Dockyards. The 
 apprentices who distinguish themselves in their studies are transferred 
 to the Engineering College at Keyham for a year, and if their showing 
 justifies it, they are then sent on to the Royal Naval College at Green- 
 wich for the three years' course at that Institution. 
 
 The majority of the present Constructive Staff at the Admiralty 
 Dockyards were formerly students at the Dockyard Schools. These 
 same schools have furnished a succession of distinguished Directors of 
 Naval Construction at the Admiralty. Among these one might mention 
 Sir William White, the designer of the pre-dreadnoughts, and Sir Phillip 
 Watts, designer of the first dreadnought; others are Sir E. Reed and 
 Sir N. Barnaby. Sir J. Marshall, who started as an apprentice in a 
 Dockyard School, became, later on, Director of the Dockyard. Sir J. 
 Biles, Professor of Naval Architecture at Glasgow, had the same start 
 
UNIVERSITIES, RESEARCH AND BRAIN WASTE 11 
 
 and this was the case also with Mr. S. J. P. Thearle, formerly Chief 
 Surveyor of Lloyds'. Others could be named who have occupied or 
 who are at present occupying commanding positions with some of the 
 largest private shipbuilding concerns in Great Britain. 
 
 What a pity it would have been had such precious material been lost 
 to Great Britain. What a pity it is that so much material of like char- 
 acter has been lost and is being lost to Great Britain and the Empire. 
 What a pity it is, too, that in Canada no adequate effort has been made 
 to salvage equally good material. 
 
 The indications are that Great Britain will, in the near future, realize 
 more largely on her latent intellectual resources than she has done in 
 the past. To compete with Germany in technically trained men, how- 
 ever, she will have to increase the flow of students from the secondary 
 schools to the universities and higher technical institutions by every 
 means at her command. Mr. Fisher's education bill will help greatly 
 to that end when it comes completely into force 7 years hence. Under 
 its provisions a pupil who has reached 14 years of age will have the 
 alternative of continuing his studies on full time for 2 years longer or of 
 studying part time until he reaches 18. This will bring him to within 
 sight of entrance to the university. The indications as to who should 
 take a university course ought to stand out fairly definitely by this time 
 and the scholarships referred to above will, no doubt, make their appeal 
 to the ambitious student. 
 
 In a recent number of Nature,* Professor R. A. Gregory has given 
 some figures with regard to the relative attendance at Universities in 
 England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, the United States and Germany, 
 from which a little analysis will draw rather interesting conclusions. 
 The number of university students per ten thousand population is 
 approximately 14 in Germany, 10 in the United States, 5 in England, 17 
 in Scotland, 7 in Ireland, 6 in Wales. In giving the figure for the United 
 States, Professor Gregory has based it on the 72 universities on the 
 accepted list of the Carnegie Foundation. In Canada, as a whole, the 
 figure would be about 15 and in Ontario it would bulk somewhere in the 
 neighbourhood of 25. Here no account has been taken of the difference 
 in standards for entrance to the universities in different countries or 
 of the difference of age at which the student is prepared to enter. In 
 Germany the average age at which the student leaves the gymnasium is 
 between 20 and 21. In Great Britain the usual age of entrance to a 
 university is between 17 and 18, except in the case of Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge where it is between 19 and 20. With us the normal age of matri- 
 
 *August 15, 1918. 
 
12 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL CANADIAN INSTITUTE 
 
 dilation is 18 and it is about the same in the United States. Taking 
 these facts into account it will be seen that most of that which passes as 
 university work in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States would 
 be of gymnasial standard in Germany. If we would compare the num- 
 ber of students in the several countries, on the basis of the university 
 standard in Germany, we would probably not be doing injustice to any 
 of the other countries concerned by giving for every 10,000 of population 
 the figures 14 in Germany, 3 in the United States, 3 in England, 6 in 
 Scotland, 3 in Ireland, 2 in Wales, 5 in Canada, 8 in Ontario. 
 
 While in Paris last summer, I found that the total attendance for 
 the year 1913-14 at universities and other educational institutions of 
 university grade in France was in the neighbourhood of 26,000. This 
 is at the rate of a little more than 6 per 10,000 population. It would 
 hardly be necessary to cut this figure down as much as we did with the 
 corresponding figures for the other allied countries. In comparing the 
 university status of France with that of Germany, too, it would only 
 be fair to take account of the selective policy adopted by the former 
 country with regard to the intellectually gifted. 
 
 One must not be too hasty in finding implications in the figures we 
 have mentioned or in drawing conclusions from them. They do not 
 imply that the intellectual status of Germany compared with that of 
 England is as 14 to 3, nor do they give the relative positions of the two 
 countries in regard to scientific achievement. The scientific status of a 
 country is determined principally by the quality of the output of its 
 foremost research workers. The status of England in science compared 
 with that of Germany is in the aggregate, no doubt, higher than that 
 given by the ratio 3 to 14. This would seem to indicate that among 
 the scientists trained in England is to be found a larger proportion of 
 high grade ones than is the case with those who are trained in Germany. 
 This may or may not imply a smaller proportionate waste of scientific 
 material among the men of highest intellectual capacity in England than 
 among those who are of a somewhat lower grade. It might imply that 
 the average intellectual level of the classes in England from which the 
 ranks of science are recruited is higher than that of the classes in Ger- 
 many from which science draws her recruits. My own impression is 
 that the average Englishman has been endowed by nature with more 
 intelligence than the average German. There can be no doubt that 
 the amount of brain power which is undeveloped and which goes 
 to waste in England is something enormous. The one thing that the 
 figures just given do tell us is that in Germany there are more young 
 men in proportion to population who prolong the period of their studies 
 
UNIVERSITIES, RESEARCH AND BRAIN WASTE 13 
 
 and receive an advanced training than there are in other countries. 
 Of these young men science secures its full share. As a consequence a 
 larger number of highly trained men are available for the purposes of 
 science and industry in Germany than elsewhere. It would appear that 
 men of such training have been spared by Germany during the war as 
 they have not been spared by the Allies. 
 
 Two months ago, while in London, England, I had a conversation 
 with Dr. E. C. Worden, chemical expert of the Bureau of Aircraft Pro- 
 duction, Washington, D.C., who had been commissioned to report on 
 the chemical factories in the occupied portion of Germany. He had 
 furnished detailed reports on 62 chemical factories. The largest of these 
 was the factory of the Bayer Company, at Leverkusen, 12 miles from 
 Cologne. At this factory over 3,000 tons of pharmaceuticals, dyestuffs, 
 and other chemicals were awaiting export. The plant is equipped with 
 3,500 telephones. At the time of Dr. Worden's visit over 500 research 
 chemists were at work, and to these several hundred more would be 
 added as soon as the raw materials were available. According to Dr. 
 Worden Germany kept her technical forces unimpaired by the war. 
 She placed her technical men in positions where they did not run too 
 much risk. 
 
 An economic blockade has been divested of some of its terrors for 
 the Germans, for the Haber process has been so improved that they can 
 obtain an ample supply of nitrates from the air. Their agricultural 
 needs in this connection, Dr. Worden states, will be satisfied for all 
 time. At the Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik, located near Ludwigs- 
 hafen, above Coblenz, on the Rhine, they are in a position to extract 
 the nitrogen from 2^ cubic miles of air daily. This Company has a 
 new research laboratory which, with its equipment, cost $750,000. In 
 many cases where the Germans used a chemical plant for making ex- 
 plosives, they erected in the neighbourhood a substantial factory on a 
 scale at least equal to that of the plant which was being utilized for war 
 purposes and the factories so erected were all held in readiness to begin 
 operations as soon as the war was over. The expectation was, of course, 
 that these new plants would be paid for by the Allies and no expense 
 therefore was spared in their preparation. It is hardly necessary then 
 to remark that Germany, so far as the chemical industry is concerned, is 
 in splendid condition to resume competition with the other nations of 
 the world. 
 
 It evidently behooves the Allies to increase not only their university 
 attendance but more particularly also their output of research workers. 
 This would be advisable under any circumstances. It becomes doubly 
 
14 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL CANADIAN INSTITUTE 
 
 urgent in the face of a German competition backed by an ample supply 
 of scientifically trained workers. Nowhere is it more necessary to take 
 stock of one's scientific position than it is in Canada. 
 
 The figures already given for university attendance do not appear 
 to place Canada in an unfavourable light as compared with countries 
 other than Germany. Gauged by the second set of figures, however, 
 Canada, as a whole, and even Ontario, shows to disadvantage in com- 
 parison with Germany. The actual disadvantage, too, is greater than 
 that implied in the ratio of 8 to 14. For the 8 Ontario students would, 
 on the average, be less mature than the 14 German students and would 
 include among them a smaller proportion who are engaged on more 
 advanced work and preparing to do research. If we limit ourselves to 
 the upper ranges of University work, that is to say to the preparation 
 of research workers, Canada hardly compares with the United States 
 and Ontario itself is quite outclassed by certain States of the Union. 
 It may be remarked, however, that we in Ontario are getting under 
 way. 
 
 I have referred to the assistance in the form of scholarships and 
 bourses extended to the poor boys in England and France. We have 
 nothing that corresponds to this in America. Our idea of a scholarship 
 is a comparatively small prize not at all proportionate to the keep of a 
 boy for a year, let alone several years in succession. Our nearest approach 
 to the English conception of a scholarship is what we call a fellowship. 
 This, however, is only available to a graduate student. The attached 
 stipend is usually a meagre one and the fellowship may or may not be 
 renewable for a second or third year. It is often utilized, too, as a pretext 
 for securing a certain amount of cheap teaching. 
 
 The fundamental defect in the educational systems on the American 
 continent is the failure to make adequate provision for the training of 
 the exceptionally gifted. It is quite evident that funds must be pro- 
 vided for the care of the mentally defective. A proposition to help 
 those who are backward in their studies will receive a sympathetic 
 hearing. If, however, it were proposed that the State should spend 
 money in establishing a school for genius after the model of one or other 
 of those which are supported by the State in France, the cry of class 
 privilege would be raised. If there were question of extending financial 
 aid in their studies to one or other of two boys, the first of whom was 
 exceptionally gifted, the second of mediocre capacity, and if the man on 
 the street were consulted in the matter, he would more likely than not 
 advise that the money be given to the second boy on the ground that 
 he was already handicapped in competition with the first boy. 
 
UNIVERSITIES, RESEARCH AND BRAIN WASTE 15 
 
 With France we should learn to realize that the exceptionally gifted 
 individual is there for the good of the community. All the ameliora- 
 tions which we enjoy we owe in the last resort to such individuals. The 
 State, then, may well defray the cost of their training for it will ulti- 
 mately profit more from the expenditure than those on whom the money 
 is expended. One creative worker who adds an increment to the heritage 
 handed down from generation to generation ultimately means more to 
 the nation and the race than a hundred mediocrities trained to their 
 capacity. No number of trained mediocrities could compensate for the 
 loss of a Newton. 
 
 Whether America has lost one or. more Newtons no one can say for 
 certain. But that many, very many, who should have done creative 
 work of a very high order have, because of defective educational facilities, 
 failed to achieve their destiny, there can be no doubt. Because of this 
 America in particular and the world in general are so much the poorer. 
 
 A generation ago American university conditions were something 
 appalling. In my own department students were everywhere misled. 
 The only way in which one could get an adequate grounding in the 
 calculus was by going to Europe. This subject, which we have already 
 referred to as the basis for most of the higher mathematical analysis, 
 was practically everywhere mistaught. The result was that the potential 
 mathematicians in America were sterilized. One of them, who after 
 his American training had the corrective of a European experience and 
 who now holds an honourable place among American mathematicians, 
 told me ruefully that he would never recover from his early training. 
 I have in mind another and younger man from whom his friends and 
 teachers expected great things. His undergraduate training was of 
 the kind referred to above. On top of it he completed a course in one 
 of the best graduate schools on the continent. He has failed to make 
 good, however. His graduate teachers attribute his failure to the 
 false start given by his undergraduate training. I am inclined to accept 
 this explanation for I know the man and I am convinced that he had 
 the material in him to make a research worker. I have had my own 
 experience in this connection. Fifteen years after I had received my 
 grounding in the calculus I discovered, I am ashamed to say, in a German 
 University, the University of Berlin, that it had been taught to me 
 falsely, irremediably, and fundamentally falsely. A dislocation of fifteen 
 years in one's scientific life can hardly fail to leave its impress. 
 
 There are other subjects, I am informed, in which instruction in 
 American universities was almost as bad as that in mathematics a 
 
16 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL CANADIAN INSTITUTE 
 
 generation ago. Conditions, however, have greatly improved in the 
 interval. A student would be tolerably safe now in accepting the 
 guidance in mathematics offered in any of the larger universities. The 
 like will, no doubt, be true of other subjects also. There is no longer 
 the same urgency as formerly for a student to go abroad. Too much 
 inbreeding, however, is not to be encouraged. A certain amount of 
 circulation is healthful. A university, too, should avoid isolation. It 
 should be in touch with other universities at home and abroad and ought 
 to be familiar with what is going on in the outside world. 
 
 The change in conditions in American universities, the improvement 
 in instruction which has taken place during the last twenty-five to thirty 
 years, is due primarily to the initiative and self-sacrifice of hundreds of 
 young men who, from time to time, crossed the Atlantic in pursuit of 
 knowledge. After years of study abroad these men returned to America 
 with a new outlook and new ideas. They were imbued with the spirit 
 of research and brought it with them into the universities where they 
 received appointments. In the larger institutions there were develop- 
 ments along graduate and research lines. In universities both large and 
 small, the research spirit reacted on the undergraduate work and vital- 
 ized it. Bringing a sleepy old text-book routine institution into touch 
 with research has all the effect of connecting a stagnant pool with running 
 water. There are still some pools that would be the better for a little 
 more flow. 
 
 The research workers just referred to organized scientific societies. 
 At the meetings of these societies, papers, containing the results of their 
 researches, were read and discussed. Journals were founded for the 
 publication of these papers. The scientific status of the United States 
 and the universities within its borders rose in the eyes of Europe. 
 
 The American universities a generation ago were practically all high 
 schools with the exception of the Johns Hopkins University. They are 
 now a combination of university and high school, and in certain of them 
 the research side has been considerably emphasised. The Johns Hopkins 
 was a pioneer in research. It was founded primarily as a research in- 
 stitution. An important feature in its policy was the appointment of big 
 men to its professorships. Big men, however, were not always available. 
 Furthermore it was straitened financially. It did its best under the 
 circumstances and that meant much. Brick and mortar held a small 
 place in its programme and its buildings we're less pretentious than those 
 of the larger American universities in general. It established scientific 
 journals and within a few years of its foundation, its prestige in Europe 
 
UNIVERSITIES, RESEARCH AND BRAIN WASTE 17 
 
 eclipsed that of all other universities on this side of the Atlantic. Other 
 universities supplied with more ample funds have followed the example 
 of the Johns Hopkins and have made research a conspicuous feature of 
 their work. Most universities on this continent might take a lesson 
 from the Johns Hopkins University in regard to the relative emphasis 
 to be laid on men and buildings. 
 
 The improvement in the scientific and academic status of American 
 universities during recent years I have attributed primarily to a number 
 of individuals who studied in Europe and brought back with them to 
 America the inspiration of research. To these are to be added scientific 
 graduates of the Johns Hopkins University distributed among the 
 educational institutions of the continent who had their share in leavening 
 the academic sentiment and spreading the research idea. Those who 
 now have charge of research work in American universities and those 
 who are engaged in industrial research on this side of the Atlantic are, 
 for the most part, pupils of the pioneers in research of whom we have 
 just been speaking. 
 
 The research men on the staffs of American universities have done 
 all that is humanly possible for them to do to give efficient instruction 
 in science and to improve research conditions in their institutions. It 
 is up to the university administrators to do their share. Salaries must 
 be increased especially in the junior grades and research men must not 
 be overloaded with teaching. I could mention one of the largest uni- 
 versities on the continent whose policy it has been to pay its professors 
 the minimum for which it could get them. A few years ago the head of 
 a department in this university told me that the professors' salaries 
 there ranged from $2,000 to $5,000 a year. The President was housed 
 palatially. I could point you to another famous institution, known by 
 name to every one in this audience, which has on its list professors who 
 are in receipt of a yearly salary of $2,500 or $3,000. Before the war this 
 institution paid its instructors the princely sum of $900 a year. A few 
 weeks ago I learned that it was now anxious to pay $1,800 for a newly 
 fledged B.A. as instructor in mathematics where it formerly expected 
 to secure a man of Ph.D. grade for half that sum. This is one of the 
 effects of the war. I could name a well-known university where they 
 paid instructors $1,000 a year before the war. Promotion is none too 
 rapid at this institution. Some years ago, so I was told, the head of 
 one of the departments requested the President to increase the salary 
 of one of his instructors to $1,500. The instructor in question was the 
 strongest research man in his department. The President refused the 
 request on the ground that he was not impressive looking. Fortunately, 
 
18 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL CANADIAN INSTITUTE 
 
 the man in question did not have to wait long for a call elsewhere. He 
 is now professor in another university, where he receives a salary better 
 proportioned to his attainments. An eminent scientist, who was 
 formerly head of a department in an important state university, told 
 me that his two assistant professors, who happened to be married men, 
 were so poorly paid that they had themselves to do their family washing. 
 
 That the university administration in America does not always 
 appreciate the efforts of the research man is illustrated in the case of a 
 certain state university which had several men on its staff who were 
 interested in research. These men had published a number of papers 
 in foreign scientific journals. This came to the ears of the Board of 
 Regents. As it happened the Governor of the State was a member of 
 the Board and he lost no time in communicating with the offending pro- 
 fessors and informing them that they were hired to teach and not to 
 write. This story I have from a former professor of the university in 
 question. 
 
 The administration of a university may not usually express itself in 
 the same way as the State Governor just referred to, but its policy is 
 frequently just as effective in discouraging research. The business 
 administration of an American university when it comes to engaging 
 instructors is apt to apply the law of supply and demand ruthlessly. It 
 takes no account of the motives or ideals of those who are seeking posi- 
 tions on the teaching staff. Among the candidates may be one whose 
 dearest desire in life is to find the opportunity to do research. This 
 privilege he would not forego for anything which fortune or favour could 
 offer him. He has already made his first contributions to knowledge 
 and there is every reason to believe that nature has endowed him with 
 gifts of the highest order. The findings of research appear to him to 
 be the most permanent contribution to our civilization. The great 
 pathfinders in science he regards as the highest product of the race. 
 By identifying himself with science through research it seems to him 
 that he associates himself more closely with the eternal than he can do 
 in any other way. The only opportunity to do research would appear 
 to lie in a university career. The administration offers him a beggarly 
 pittance barely sufficient to hold soul and body together. This he 
 accepts in the expectation that he will find the time for research. Vain 
 delusion! He is loaded down with lectures and tutorial work on the 
 general business principle that the more hours his employers squeeze 
 out of him, the more they are getting for their money. This is the kind 
 of policy which kills the goose that lays the golden egg. The years pass. 
 Possibly our research man gets married. He has no margin to come and 
 
UNIVERSITIES, RESEARCH AND BRAIN WASTE 19 
 
 go on. Promotion comes slowly. Financial worries multiply. He 
 finds himself at last compelled to abandon his long cherished plans for 
 research. He broods over the futility of his sacrifices and eats his very 
 heart out. 
 
 Some there are who are more fortunate, who find it possible to reserve 
 a little time for research and who manage to produce, though under 
 handicap. A few, too, there are who, after years of struggle, arrive 
 in a position where they are masters of the major part of their time 
 and can devote themselves to research, if in the intervening years their 
 productive ardor has not abated. 
 
 If then scientific productivity in the American universities to-day 
 is greater than it was a quarter of a century ago the credit therefore is 
 due not to the university administrations, but, as we have already 
 stated, to members of the academic staffs, which members are also 
 responsible for the increased efficiency of scientific instruction in the 
 universities. For the more advanced instruction these men often 
 receive no remuneration. They are permitted as a privilege to under- 
 take this work in addition to their regular work. There is no eight-hour 
 day for the research worker. For overtime he does not receive time 
 and a half pay. He gives the extra time gratis. The layman may 
 think that the scientist is paid for the articles he publishes in the tech- 
 nical journals. This, however, is not the case. He does this work gratis 
 also. The editorial work on the scientific journals is, in general, done 
 without remuneration. I may add furthermore that there is no money in 
 the publication of a scientific treatise or a more advanced text-book. 
 
 The man on the street will say any one who does so much work 
 gratis is not practical. There is this side of it, however, that when a 
 man has toiled a lifetime to make a fortune, the very best that he can 
 do with it is to endow research. His benefaction to the race is then of 
 the same effect as that of the research worker. The man of wealth 
 contributes indirectly to the welfare of mankind. He first acquires his 
 wealth and then uses it to subsidize the research worker. The latter 
 makes his contribution directly. Why should we say that he is 
 less practical than the business man who has accumulated wealth? 
 It may be that, under stress of circumstances, he consents to accept 
 less than a decent living salary. The business administration of the 
 university which is willing to take advantage of his position, however, 
 can hardly be called practical for its policy is, in the long run, detri- 
 mental to the university, to science and to the best interests of the 
 nation. 
 
 In European universities the position of research is less incidental 
 
20 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL CANADIAN INSTITUTE 
 
 than in the general run of American universities. In Germany the 
 university is essentially a research institution and every member of the 
 teaching staff, as we have already indicated, is appointed on a basis of 
 research qualifications. Practically the same result is secured in France 
 in another way. The professoriate there is recruited from the most 
 select of the select material which is admitted to the schools for genius 
 to which I have already made reference. In certain of the English 
 universitier the professorial standard is safeguarded by a system of 
 so-called electors. For those who are not familiar with the system I may 
 say that when a chair becomes vacant a number of men are named whose 
 duty it is to select a man to fill the place. These are known as electors. 
 They are usually men of technical knowledge. Certain of them are 
 from the institution concerned. The others are outsiders. The princi- 
 pal evil the system is intended to guard against is appointment by 
 local pull. The voice of the outsiders, I am told, is usually the deter- 
 mining factor in making the selection. I have in mind a case where 
 there were five electors of whom three were from outside the institution. 
 The two local electors felt under obligation to support a colleague who 
 was a candidate for the position. The outside electors, however, said 
 that they must have a stronger research man and it was decided in this 
 sense. 
 
 In America there are no recognized safeguards for the professoriate 
 such as exist on the other side of the Atlantic. There are no traditional 
 standards by which the candidate for a professor's chair must qualify. 
 It is not always a question of scientific achievement. Local pull is 
 frequently in evidence. Executive and committee work within the 
 university and outside activities with an advertising value often receive 
 their reward. Where, too, it is the intention of the appointing power 
 to make the scientific status of a candidate the determining factor the 
 scientific advice invoked is often far from competent. Some years ago 
 the American Mathematical Society, recognizing the existing state of 
 affairs, named a committee to consider whether it might not be possible 
 to bring the knowledge and experience of the society to bear in the 
 making of mathematical appointments in universities and colleges. The 
 committee, however, reported that they were unable to devise any 
 means for attaining the desired end. 
 
 The material which goes to make up the teaching staff of an American 
 university is most heterogeneous. Not all the young men who enter the 
 academic profession are of the idealistic type to which I have referred 
 a little earlier. Their average, however, would compare favourably, I 
 think, with the average in any other walk of life. They all look forward 
 
UNIVERSITIES, RESEARCH AND BRAIN WASTE 21 
 
 to professorships of course, and one or all may ultimately arrive. Pro- 
 motion in an American university is slow. The gradations leading up 
 to a professorship are more numerous on this side of the Atlantic than 
 in Europe. Though the scientific qualifications in America are on the 
 whole less exacting than in Europe, advancement, for the man of ability 
 at least, is not as rapid. The man of high attainments will find himself 
 a professor at an earlier age in Europe than in America. However it 
 may be in other departments of human activity America is not the land 
 of the young man in the field of academic work. 
 
 I have taken occasion to speak of the overloading of members of the 
 American universities' staffs with teaching. This had reference to the 
 professors in general as well as to the junior members of the staffs. The 
 number of lectures which a professor in an American university is called 
 on to give is much in excess of that demanded of his European compeer. 
 In response to a question of mine as to the number of lectures which he 
 was expected to give in the course of a year, a professor on the staff of 
 Oxford told me that his position required him to lecture 28 hours in the 
 course of the year. As a matter of fact, however, he lectured 56 hours. 
 In France a professor is expected to lecture 3 hours a week. This is 
 usually for the academic year of 30 weeks though some of the professors 
 in Paris are only required to lecture 15 weeks. In Germany it is stipu- 
 lated that the professor lecture at least 2 hours a week throughout the 
 academic year. He, usually of his own volition, gives more than the 
 stipulated number of hours. He is not troubled by the limitations of a 
 fixed curriculum, it may be noted. He lectures on subjects of his own 
 choosing and rarely on more than two at a time. 
 
 In America it is nothing out of the ordinary for a professor to give 
 from 300 to 500 lectures in the course of a year. The layman may fancy 
 that this is not too much and he is likely enough to jump to the conclusion 
 that the European professor has a very easy time of it. Let us see, 
 however, how it works out. The European professor is iii a position to 
 concentrate on one subject at a time. It may be that the literature on 
 the subject is not organized up to date. For the purpose of his course 
 of lectures it will be necessary to organize it. To digest and collate the 
 scattered material is likely enough to be a task of some magnitude. It 
 will probably be as much as he can handle. It may be that it will take 
 him several years to do the work. Here and there, by the way, he may 
 delay over a point which needs to be cleared up or a problem whose 
 solution would be useful. However that may be one result of his labours 
 will, as likely as not, be a treatise which will be of service to many more 
 individuals than he could reach by word of mouth in the class room. 
 
22 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL CANADIAN INSTITUTE 
 
 These individuals would be located in different countries and distributed 
 over the surface of the civilized earth, including among them seasoned 
 research workers as well as immature students. Occasionally, too, the 
 lectures of a creative thinker will consist largely in the exposition of 
 successive discoveries which he is making in the course of the develop- 
 ment of a subject. 
 
 The lectures of an American university professor will rarely be of 
 the character of the lectures to which we have just referred. They 
 cannot have such character if they are to run into the hundreds annually. 
 As a matter of fact many of the so-called lectures in universities on this 
 continent consist entirely of text-book work and are purely tutorial in 
 their character. This is necessarily the case in institutions which are 
 half high school and half university. 
 
 The typical American professor who lectures on a multiplicity of 
 subjects simultaneously can hardly concentrate on any one of them. He 
 certainly cannot concentrate on all. He has to be perpetually changing 
 interest as he jumps from one subject to another. He has to be content 
 with placing himself in position from day to day with regard to the 
 successive parts of the several subjects, and the position in which he 
 places himself is pretty much the same from one year to another so 
 that the same lectures are repeated from year to year and finally become 
 a matter of routine. 
 
 The lecturer who concentrates on one subject at a time, and changes 
 that subject from year to year or at longer intervals, covers a much 
 larger territory in the end than the man who drives the same half dozen 
 subjects abreast year after year. Besides this he has a much better 
 command over his material. The conditions best adapted to the needs 
 of a scientist, the conditions under which he will attain his maximum 
 as a research worker and prove himself most efficient as a teacher, are 
 not always clearly apprehended by American university administra- 
 tions. 
 
 The American university is administered by a Board of Regents 
 composed wholly or almost wholly of business men. There is a President 
 appointed by the Board and appointments to the teaching staff are made 
 by the Board on the recommendation of the President. In general the 
 Faculty has no representation on the Board and its sole connection with 
 the Board is through the President. There is a good deal of dissatis- 
 faction with this arrangement, I was told while on a visit to the United 
 States last summer. A prominent member of the academic staff of one 
 of the principal American universities gave expression to this feeling by 
 stating that the teaching staff was slave to the administration. There 
 
UNIVERSITIES, RESEARCH AND BRAIN WASTE 23 
 
 have been some experiments in the way of modifying the organization. 
 Representation of the Faculty on the Board of Regents has been tried. 
 There have also been committees of the Faculty having access to the 
 Board and committees composed of members of the Board and members 
 of the Faculty. With what success these tentatives have met I do not 
 know. There does not seem to be complete unanimity with regard to 
 the remedy which is needed for the existing state of affairs. I may say 
 that in European universities there is no administrative body of the 
 nature of the Board of Regents of an American university and there is 
 no office which corresponds to that of the American university Presi- 
 dent. The Principal of a British college or university has nothing like 
 the powers of the university President. The Faculty has far more in- 
 fluence in the conduct of affairs than is the case in America. This is in 
 evidence in the making of appointments. For example, where the system 
 of electors is in operation the Faculty has a voice in choosing the electors. 
 It also has its say in the case of universities where the system of electors 
 has not been adopted. 
 
 In our Canadian universities we have the American form of admin- 
 istration. Our curriculum and academic standard, however, have been 
 imported from Great Britain. We have adopted the idea of the honours 
 courses, and these courses at the University of Toronto are probably 
 the heaviest undergraduate courses on the continent. With this founda- 
 tion one would have said that we should have developed along graduate 
 lines more rapidly than has been the case. Some of the American 
 universities, however, have greatly outdistanced us in the development 
 of graduate and research work. Let us hope that we shall overtake 
 them. Our students who have received their bachelor's degree in one 
 of the honours courses compare more than favourably as a rule with 
 those who have completed an undergraduate course in the correspond- 
 ing department of an American university. The result of a com- 
 parison with the best product of the universities on the other side of the 
 Atlantic is, however, not so favourable. The conception of a university 
 at its best is on a somewhat higher plane in Europe than in America. 
 The same is true also of the secondary school. A young man of excep- 
 tional ability being trained in Europe is likely to be somewhat in advance 
 of where he would find himself at the same age if he were being trained in 
 America. On entering Oxford or Cambridge a student specializing in 
 mathematics is about two years ahead of a student entering the Univer- 
 sity of Toronto in the same department, while he is just one year older. 
 The discrepancy in classics is quite as great. This does not hold in the 
 case of the natural sciences which receive less attention than mathematics 
 and classics in the Public Schools of England. From what we have just 
 
24 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL CANADIAN INSTITUTE 
 
 said, however, it would appear that it should be possible to so modify 
 the methods of instruction in our Canadian secondary schools as to 
 save a year to our brighter boys by the time they are ready to matricu- 
 late. A comparison with results obtained on the continent would lead 
 to the same conclusion. 
 
 The university attendance in the Province of Ontario in proportion 
 to population compares favourably with that of any other country 
 except Germany, after all due allowance has been made for inequality 
 of university standards in different countries. Nevertheless 6 out of 7 
 pupils who pass the High School entrance examination never matricu- 
 late. About 7 out of 9 do not attempt the matriculation examination.* 
 Among these boys and girls there are sure to be many who would profit 
 by a university course. Much good material must here go to waste. 
 Why should we not have in Ontario, or better still throughout Canada, 
 a system of scholarships which would provide the highest possible 
 education for the exceptionally gifted? Australia makes such provision 
 for her gifted boys and girls. Why should we do less for ours? 
 
 The waste of brain in this world is a tragedy of the first order. There 
 is none greater. This was brought home to us with peculiar emphasis 
 during the war. When Moseley was killed at Gallipoli scientists every- 
 where felt a sharp pang. Here was a young man who had crossed the 
 threshold. He had just had time to prove his genius. Almost at his 
 first attempt he left his imprint on the science of physics and great things 
 were expected of him. His sudden cutting off did a great violence to 
 the sense of the fitness of things in the minds of those who knew what 
 a loss it meant to science. The toll of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 
 the war was in the neighbourhood of 2,000. Of these some had already 
 been productive and others gave great promise. The most gifted of 
 our young men went overseas and many of them will never return. 
 Among the latter were two of gold medallist standing in my own Depart- 
 ment. The sacrifice of a young man of exceptional ability seems to 
 accentuate the unreason and injustice of warfare. Why should he not 
 have been permitted to fulfil his natural destiny, to lead an intellectually 
 productive life and perhaps add a permanent increment to the heritage 
 of the race? Yet the same sacrifice of exceptional gifts, the same 
 waste of brain power, is going on regularly in our midst in peace times 
 and we pay no attention to it. What is possible in this regard I have 
 illustrated by the history of mathematics in America. Successive 
 
 The figures here given are based on the results for the matriculation examinations 
 during the five years 1910-14, and on the results for the High School entrance examina- 
 tions during the five years 1906-1910. 
 
UNIVERSITIES, RESEARCH AND BRAIN WASTE 25 
 
 generations of potential mathematicians were wiped out. They never 
 knew what struck them. Their contemporaries never knew that nature 
 intended them to be mathematicians. The story of the Dockyard 
 Schools is full of suggestion as to the waste that must be going on. We 
 pause to think when we hear of a man like George Green, who was 
 discovered at 40, graduated at Cambridge at 44, and died at 48, after 
 leaving his permanent mark on the history of mathematics and physics. 
 It is said that his later years were saddened by the realization of the 
 fact that the greater part of his life had been wasted. How many 
 George Greens are there who die before 40? How many who are not 
 discovered before 48? 
 
 There is no general formula which will enable us to avoid all waste 
 of brain but we should endeavour in every possible way to salvage all 
 we can. It would, no doubt, be helpful to have the advantages of a 
 university or higher technical education presented from different view- 
 points to the pupils in the secondary schools, preferably by visiting 
 lecturers. Their studies, too, should include something of a biographical 
 or narrative character touching on the lives and work of the great 
 scientists. This might even with advantage be introduced into the 
 elementary schools. Matter could readily be selected which would not 
 be lacking in romance. 
 
 Some adequate reference it seems to me should be made to science 
 in the teaching of history in the schools. Modern history, as I under- 
 stand it, is an account of how a people, starting out under certain con- 
 ditions at a given time in the past, have arrived at where they now find 
 themselves. The most important agent involved in the transition, the 
 largest factor by far concerned in modifying the conditions of living 
 during the past two centuries, has been science. Is it not of the first 
 importance that every boy and girl should be made aware of this fact? 
 
 By stimulating the interest of the pupils of the preparatory schools 
 in science, by visualizing university opportunities and by establishing a 
 system of scholarships such as we have already referred to, we could 
 doubtless increase considerably the number of students of ability in our 
 universities. Those who do not go to the university, but leave the 
 elementary or secondary school to earn their living, would at least 
 carry away with them a certain respect for science and a recognition of 
 the fact that the university has a useful function to perform in the life 
 of the community. This would later on have its effect in helping to 
 create a public opinion which would react more favourably to proposals 
 for financial aid to universities and science. 
 
26 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL CANADIAN INSTITUTE 
 
 A university should be sufficiently staffed to care for the needs of 
 its students. Our own University is undermanned. The tutorial 
 classes should be smaller. This is no good reason, however, why the 
 members of the staff should be overworked. Junior instructors, who 
 have research inclinations, should be given a chance to show the mettle 
 that is in them. The more mature men, who have already proved 
 themselves, should be given time for research. Only yesterday I was 
 talking to a member of the staff who told me that for three weeks past 
 he had been working till three in the morning and that for seven days 
 in the week. The man in question is a research worker, but the work 
 referred to had nothing to do with research. This is, of course, excep- 
 tional and it will not ordinarily be necessary for my colleague to work 
 so strenuously. Even so it is a little inconvenient. The same man, 
 too worked till midnight daily during the last month of the vacation 
 getting the materials required in his laboratory in readiness for the 
 opening of the term. I asked him whether he received any pay for 
 work overtime. His reply was an incredulous smile which, interpreted, 
 meant how could any member of a university staff be so ingenuous a 
 to ask such a question. 
 
 The case I have cited is an extreme one to be sure. There are 
 plenty of members of the university staff, however, who have more 
 than enough to do and there is none who has not enough to keep him 
 busy. Of this the layman can rest assured. Further staff, of course, 
 would mean more expense, but the Province would be well paid for its 
 extra outlay. 
 
 There should be a larger number of places for research men in Canada. 
 There should be more positions for them in the universities and more in 
 the industries outside. The University of Toronto has begun to develop 
 along research lines and in the course of time, no doubt, much good 
 Canadian brain power will be salvaged which would otherwise go to waste. 
 The projected Institute for Research at Ottawa will absorb some of the 
 men trained by the University for research. It is to be hoped that the 
 demand from the industries will grow. It might be well also to have 
 such men in charge of the science departments in the high schools and 
 to encourage their research inclinations by furnishing them with adequate 
 laboratory equipment. Something of this sort, I understand, it is 
 proposed to do in England.* This would all tend to conserve Canadian 
 brain for Canada and would check the leakage to the United States and 
 
 *A provision in the Education Act enables local authorities to meet the cost of 
 research work of educational value conducted by teachers in the schools. 
 
UNIVERSITIES, RESEARCH AND BRAIN WASTE 27 
 
 other countries. Of the 15,000 living graduates of the University of 
 Toronto, 1,700 are living in the Republic to the South of us. Between 
 400 and 500 others are domiciled abroad. McGill's loss to the United 
 States is 1,500 out of 6,700 graduates. 
 
 It has been suggested that research professors and research associate 
 professors be appointed in the departments of natural science of the 
 University of Toronto, their duties to consist primarily in the prosecution 
 of research on their own account and in the training of young men of 
 selected ability for research. The aggregate of these research men 
 would be known as the research staff in natural science of the University 
 of Toronto. 
 
 To me it appears that the organization of such a group would, in 
 addition to creating greater effectiveness within the university, have a 
 two-fold benefit without. On the one hand it would remind the laymen 
 that there exists a body of men in the world whose business it is to 
 advance knowledge and on the other hand it would impress on them the 
 fact that the University is not an institution whose sole function is to 
 purvey knowledge, but that it has also another and quite as important 
 function, namely to add to knowledge and to train young men in order 
 that they may add to knowledge in their turn. 
 
 The war has been wasteful of brain power. It has, however, taught 
 us its value. In the work of reconstruction nothing can be of more 
 importance than conserving and realizing on the brain power of the 
 nation. In this work the universities must play the leading role. If 
 in our reconstructed country we shall have reduced brain waste to a 
 minimum and increased brain output to a maximum, we shall have 
 raised the greatest of all memorials to our boys who sacrificed them- 
 selves in France and Flanders in order that Canada should be saved 
 from determination by Germany. It is for the Canada whose destinies 
 will be determined by Canadians that they fought and died and the 
 Canada that is to be will be their monument. Let us make the monu- 
 ment a great and noble one. May it be worthy of those whom it com- 
 memorates. 
 
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS 
 
 WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN 
 THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY 
 WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH 
 DAY AND TO $I.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY 
 OVERDUE. 
 
 NOV 21 1932 
 KOV 22 
 
 MAY 6 1936 
 13 192: 
 
 APR 
 10 1944 
 
 APR 4 1948 
 
 'r9BS 111 
 
 943 
 
 LD 21-50m-8,-35