TALK TO PUPILS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 July 1938, Page 6

TALK TO PUPILS

1 DR. R. M. BARRER VISITS WAIRARAPA COLLEGE. OBSERVATIONS ON RESEARCH. . A visitor to Wairarapa College yesterday was Dr. R. M. Barrer, who has been studying at Cambridge University for the past six years and is on a brief holiday visit to New Zealand. Mr G. W. Morice extended a welcome to Dr. Barrer, who, he said, was in the Wairarapa High School’s first Illa form and was well known on the field of sport. Observing that it was ten years since he had left the Wairarapa High School, Dr. Barrer recollected that in his early days at the school, ■ with others, he cleared stones off the playing ground. His main difficulty in those days, as far as school work was concerned, was mathematics, though at Canterbury University he took greater interest in that subject, which was essential in chemistry, physics, and engineering. These branches of science would be lost without mathematics. Dr. Barrer said his main activity abroad was research in physical chemistry. . The power- that research had given man had outstripped man’s control over himself, hence his destruction in wars and in other- ways, though social science might give him the necessary control over himself. What was re- • search? asked Dr. Barrer. It was limitless, a vast horizon opening out as one advanced. ' He stated that different types of research workers had obtained brilliant results. There were, for example, the romantic school of intuitive workers and the classical school of slower thinkers who outstripped others in the end. The late Lord Rutherford was unique: he combined something of each type. Chemistry was of great importance in industry. There was no difficulty about securing jobs in England, as liaison officers were sent round to universities to secure the best research workers. Some industrial firms undertook research programmes and led the way to academic discoveries in their works. Clark Maxwell’s discovery, an academic theory, led to the radio of today. At the University of Cambridge, said Dr. Barrer, the science section now covered several acres and it took weeks to become familiar with it. There was a great variety of nationalities to be met with, there, students from every corner of the world. One of the greatest values of a stay there was in meeting these people and understanding their viewpoint. In sport, st<d Dr. Barrer, Cambridge had a slight superiority, except in Rugby, over Oxford. Cambridge University dominated Cambridge town more than Oxford University dominated Oxford town. The Oxford undergraduate. observed Dr. Barrer, looked as if he owned the world, but the Cambridge undergraduate looked as if he did not care who owned the world.