Toast by HVB to College : The occasion & the text

DRAFT

Mr. Chairman, Gentlemen.

It is a privilege and a pleasure to propose the toast to our hosts, the College, for it is clear from the way in which this meeting has gone that we owe a very great deal to them.

If we look at the title of this Symposium, setting aside for the moment the inaccuracy of the word "precision" we might perhaps be forgiven for thinking that the attendance would be mainly by industrial people, that the sessions would take the form of an exchange of stories about how one chap was quoting accuracies of 0.01% on an Avo, which he hadathecked for 10 years, how to protect dynamometer wattmeters from accidental damage by tea trolleys and so on.

But looking at the speakers in the Sessions it is clear that Government Establishments are well represented here. I often think of a Government Establishment as a non profit making concern, but I am not sure how the Post Office fits into this category, but what the Symposium has done is bring about a union of the measurement interest in Government Establishments and industry. This may be a little dangerous, one never knows what progeny may issue forth, but it is good in the long run for the problems of the one to be understood by the other, and their achievements and short-comings and so on.

Now in providing the facilities, these excellent surroundings and making all the arrangements to bring about this union, the College has served the measurements field very well indeed.

But Colleges of Technology, and indeed higher educational establishments in general, have much more than this rather passive role to play in developing the measurements field. They do after all teach the young people who come into industry and Government Establishments. To teach most effectively a very close liaison must be kept between teacher and the places of ultimate employment. One point that emerged very clearly from the discussions to-day was that measurement still has much of an art about it. The art of one environment cannot be in another isolated environment. It is clear then that this Symposium, as the Principal said this morning, has the additional function of bringing ideas into the College, and if I might add, it could be a very useful means of conveying to those who practice measurement the difficulty of the teaching of this subject. The interest aroused in the educational field is obvious from the number who have attended from other Colleges of Technology from up and down the country. This Symposium then has been a three-way affair with very excellent facilities provided by this College and again particularly some very first rate organising by Mr. Thompson.

I therefore have no hesitation in calling to you to stand and drink a toast to the Hatfield College of Technology.