Abstract
THE subject of this paper is so comprehensive that there will be no difficulty in understanding that attention has been restricted to one or two aspects of it only, and chiefly (since the paper is written by one engaged in educational administration) to that relation which exists between the scientific and technical education provided at higher institutions in this country, and the after careers of students. Even that relation cannot be treated in anything like an exhaustive manner within the limits assigned to me. My attention was specially directed to this matter some eighteen months ago by an opportunity which presented itself of reading some 150 letters written by past students of universities or of institutions of university rank. The letters were representative of an entire body of students whose education had been assisted. They came from students, men and women, who had taken degrees or diplomas in varying numbers during each of the last fifteen years. Four months ago, when, at the invitation of the committee of this section, I undertook to read this paper, steps were taken to extend the field of information. Some five hundred letters of inquiry were addressed to teachers o! repute at home, in France, Germany, and America; to representative firms of employers, mostly at home, some abroad; and to thirty of His Majesty's consuls in Europe, Asia, and the two Americas. There have been before me also the written views of the presidents of vast industrial and commercial concerns in the United States, views collected in 1903 when 1 visited America as a member of the Mosely Commission. On the whole, my letters of inquiries have been treated with much sympathy, and I have had to examine a very considerable body of evidence of all kinds. I owe a great debt of thanks to the many distinguished men of science, and to many well-known leaders of industry and commerce, who have so generously given attention to my inquiry and have been kind enough to give me their views, some of them at great length.
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The Relation of science to Industry and Commerce 1 . Nature 84, 345–353 (1910). https://doi.org/10.1038/084345a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/084345a0