For Gemology Students

Dr Edward Gubelin is an inspiring icon (forever). He explains in his usual colorful tone how to connect gemology with other faculties of science (s) + to act with a sense of responsibility + gemology without conscience is the undoing of one's soul + to be honest and always tell the truth.

Dr Edward Gubelin's Address
In his address, following the presentation of awards to the Gemmological Association of Great Britain at Goldsmith’s Hall on 25th November, 1974, including candidates from many different parts of the world, Dr Edward Gubelin said:

What is happening on our planet today? I do not mean the belligerent tensions in the near East nor the failure to adopt a common energy policy nor the worldwide monetary crisis—no, what happens in this world as an entity, what happens at the present for the first time uniquely and so thoroughly that it will be remembered in the centuries to come, just a we still acknowledge and appreciate today the invention of the wheel, of the alphabet, the development of the great religions of the world, or from a geological point of view the folding up of the Alps, as an outstanding and irrevocable phenomenon. Well, what is happening in front of our eyes today? It is a tremendous and in its kind certainly a unique metamorphosis, which could at best compare with the change which mankind underwent during the dark ages and then again at the beginning of the Renaissance. The world happens to be in the midst of a fundamental change of structure with biological, physiological, sociological and even theological effects, and these are of such profundity that we cannot escape them.

To a certain extent we have been experiencing drastic changes also in our profession. Until recently, our idea of sales promotion moved along perspectives which had already been fixed in medieval times and which were almost exclusively limited to the mere action of selling, and best to a successful sales talk, while today after a short time of transition (calculating just a few years) great value is being placed in an extensive professional erudition, profound psychology, sound argumentation and efficient advice. While previously the old Roman warning Caveat Emptor, which originated from distrust, alerted the buyer to be careful, it now has the meaning that the client wishes to be well informed and accurately advised about the goods he is interested in purchasing. This desire may only be fulfilled by the salesman if he masters a fundamental professional knowledge. Science reigns today over all sequences of our life, medicine a well as commerce, production as well as communication, and the last consumer wishes to share in this professional science.

It is the aim of the gemological courses, which you have so successfully completed, to offer this specialized knowledge which will give you greater self-assurance and consequently increase well founded trust to assist your clients in such a way as to justify the confidence they place in your hands. The relatively broad spectrum of knowledge taught in the condensed form of, say, 25 or 30 assignments distributed over two courses challenged your capability to understand connexions and relationships which exist between different disciplines of the science of nature as well as between different properties of gemstones. The capacity of thinking in relationships and coordinations as well as the readiness to engage yourselves and to take responsibility and to accept solidarity should, apart from your technical achievement, be the human or spiritual benefit of your gemological study. In this sense, I wish to congratulate your most cordially on your successful attainment, which is the well deserved result of your perseverance and brave sacrifice during two years of intensive study. Not only your personal interest in gemology has led you to this award but also your thirst for knowledge and education, that marvelous, growing, aching process, whereby the mind develops into a usable instrument with a collection of proved experiences from which to function.

Some of you may consider the diploma examination as the climax of your gemological studies. Yet, may I bring to mind that this is rather the first ‘rung of the ladder’—that you have merely just crossed the threshold of a space spreading before you with no visible horizon, and the heady sensation you may feel now is only the beginning of further studies combined with unexpected experiences which perhaps are more closely linked with your practical everyday life in future. Therefore I recommend you to remain abreast of future developments by joining the advanced post diploma courses and subscribing to gemological periodicals.

Your diploma should not mislead you to consider yourselves as infallible experts. Your status quo is comparable to the situation of a young B.Sc or Ph.D who has just received his academic title, which does not attest him yet as a fully fledged scientist but merely that he has learnt to think and act independently and—as is to be hoped—with a sense of responsibility.

Among the resources offered to the modern science of nature gemology assumes a prominent place. Unfortunately it was considered a superfluous appendage and hardly acknowledged for almost a generation, and gemological publications only appeared as foot notes to mineralogical literature. Yet, indeed, as an independent basis, gemology has often supplied mineralogy with fundamental data and proved to be of invaluable assistance. Gemology was lacking professionalism for a long time and for far too long gemology was merely a trade accessory. Gemological degrees at present are still no more than school degrees, either rewarded by trade associations or by private institutes affiliated with the trade. An academic degree course would help in upgrading the profession’s standing similarly as university training would facilitate gemology and gemologists to meet the increasing technology and standard of investigation.

However, thanks to numerous outstanding achievements in highly scientific gemological research, today gemology is fully recognized as a science. As a matter of fact, gemology is today rightly entitled to claim the merit of having essentially contributed towards the astonishing progress of mineralogical research. The endeavor to expand as far as possible the boundaries within which may be possible, is a central motive of technical and scientific development. It is the same force which led our progenitors to master the use of fire and which drives us today to investigate outer space without knowing where this may lead us to. This intense desire of mankind to question all boundaries again and again is already grappled in the Genesis of the Old Testament by the words ‘Conquer the Earth with all that is within’ and thus deprived of any further argumentation. However, if man conquers the Earth, then he must corroborate by his mental disposition as well as by his moral conduct that he is indeed legitimized for this role—not only a scientist but also in his quality as a human being.

By this I mean to emphasize that we have a right to profit from our knowledge to our own personal advantage, yet never to use it to the harm of others. A French philosopher expressed this thought with the following word: ‘Science sans conscience n’est que ruine de l’ame’—science without conscience is the undoing of one’s soul. Scientific research means searching for the truth. Consequently, we are obliged to be honest and always tell the truth, and if we happen to make a mistake we should summon the courage to admit it.

Irrevocable laws do not only exist in the field of the sciences of nature but also in the sphere of human life and coexistence. In this connexion I may refer to the problematics of liberty and restraint, to all the tensions which occur because man is a personality who must develop in freedom, yet according to the laws of nature he is also a social being, who can only completely unfold himself in a society. It may not be superfluous to remind ourselves of this fact today, when sometimes righteously, but more often with no right whatsoever, scientific or social achievements are assaulted and when the behavior of certain unscrupulous people assumes a most aggressive character. The essence of the intrinsic virtue of the thing stipulates a much more positive and courageous mind, in social, public, religious and scientific domains, in order to defend all these accomplishments of mankind and save them for future generations.

In this sense I bid you a successful future resulting from your freshly acquired gemological knowledge; may many interesting tests be the source of personal satisfaction and happiness to you and the reason of increasing confidence placed in you by your clientele.