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Why is it that we have nothing to compare with these great technological universities in this country? The main reason, I fear, is because we suffer … - Frederick Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell
" "Why is it that we have nothing to compare with these great technological universities in this country? The main reason, I fear, is because we suffer from a most lamentable type of intellectual snobbery which causes the majority of our so-called educated people to look down on science and technology as some form of menial intellectual activity, on which civilised, cultured people need not embark and indeed are better without. I am not sure that traces of it have not survived even to this day in this House. I well remember—admittedly it was a good many years ago—mentioning to a Member of your Lordships' House a relative of his, the great Lord Rayleigh, certainly one of the six greatest physicists in the world. His comment was: "Oh, yes, he is a little odd, isn't he?—interested in chemistry and that sort of thing." That was what he said of one of the greatest physicists this country has known. It is to that attitude of mind, which has by no means died out, that many of our troubles are due.
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About Frederick Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell
Frederick Alexander Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell CH PC FRS (5 April 1886 – 3 July 1957) was a British physicist who was prime scientific adviser to Winston Churchill in World War II.
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Native Name:
Frederick Lindemann, 1. Viscount Cherwell
Alternative Names:
Frederick Alexander Lindemann
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Frederick Alexander Lindemann Cherwell
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Additional quotes by Frederick Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell
It is, I think, undeniable that we have fallen behind the United States and many continental countries in industrial technique because they have produced first rate technologists in far greater numbers than we have here. Unless we can catch up with them, or, better still, overtake them, the future of our industry, especially in the export markets, is bleak.
What I have said will, I fear, arouse indignation in some quarters. That is always the way when comfortable emotional beliefs which cannot be sustained by evidence on logical grounds are challenged. The magic syllables "U.N.O." have acquired the status of an invocation, almost of a prayer. To cast doubt on the Organisation is considered akin to blasphemy. The rôle of the iconoclast is always hateful, but facts and logic cannot simply be brushed aside. I therefore think it my duty, as one not linked in any way with the Government and still less with the Opposition, to refuse to foster what I believe to be a dangerous delusion which is rapidly becoming a snare.
[O]ur whole future depends upon our productivity: that is, the amount of useful and valuable output which can be turned out with a given amount of labour and raw materials. To improve this is far and away the most important problem confronting this country—apart, of course, from the need to preserve peace. Unless we succeed in doing it, in a generation our standard of living will sink to that of the people of Portugal and will harm not only Great Britain but the sterling area as a whole.
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