"The facilities for scientific research in Europe as a whole and in England in particular are greatly exaggerated" said Professor James W. McBain yesterday in an interview for the CRIMSON. "Americans seen to feel that a scientific education is not complete until a certain period has been spent in study in a foreign country. Why anyone should choose to leave the greatest laboratories in the world is difficult to understand.
"America took her cue from England, but was slow at first to delve into scientific research, but having once caught the swing and realized the opportunities open she soon took her place among the greatest of nations rated according to their accomplishments in fields of chemistry and physics. At the time of the beginning of the World War in 1914 England had many of the most famous scientists working and developing new fields of study, but in that war these men as well as the younger men who had chosen these fields were called and a majority of them did not return. Now England is beginning again new laboratories are being constructed and more money is being devoted to their support. Chemistry is becoming almost as popular in England as in America saved her best scientific men and let them continue their spite of the war and as a consequence your country is more advanced than Europe along scientific lines. Your quest for knowledge does not need to lead you far for your professors and instructors are brilliant men that we of England look upon with admiration.
"Perhaps the reason that America's find England so agreeable for scientific study is because there they choose the subject in which their greatest interest lies and concentrate on that subject alone, the final and only examination being a general one in the chosen field. Many students find the routine of regular atterdance and frequent questionershard to take. I say the professors find it equally vigorous. In England a well known teacher is net subjected to as great burdens of either large classes cr many courses as in America but I think this University approaches nearer the model of English colleges in that respect than any I have visited in this country."
Professor McBain believes that the important factor is not which country discovers the most facts but the importance lies in what the discovery may be Kor science is no longer a secret and every one in contributing all that he can and holding nothing back
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