248 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



entific work on the development of industry and the fatal reper- 

 cussion which this incessant progress going on in the domain of pure 

 science inflicts upon it. They therefore content themselves with 

 improving their old methods and processes. Instead of inviting 

 the co-operation of men of science and expert chemists, they con- 

 tinue to intrust the fate of their machines to simple overseers, ca- 

 pable enough of adjusting a machine of the old style, but incapable 

 of devising a new process. Sometimes, it may be, they trust to some 

 happy accident to help them against foreign competition and restore 

 prosperity to their establishments without reflecting that the suc- 

 cess of their rivals is exclusively owing to their strong scientific 

 organization. 



If, with a more enterprising spirit, they call in men of science 

 to co-operate with them, they are most likely to expect an imme- 

 diate return and to be discouraged if they fail to realize it; and 

 dismiss their advisers because they can not perform the impossibili- 

 ties they expect of them. Hence the sad misunderstanding which 

 exists between men of pure science and manufacturers, the former 

 repeating that industry offers no opening for their pupils and that 

 it is of no use to direct them to a career that is ungrateful to them, 

 and the latter affirming that they do not find among the chemists 

 they employ the knowledge that will render their collaboration 

 fruitful. 



Misunderstandings of this kind will continue so long as professors 

 charged with the direction of chemical studies do not take exact ac- 

 count of what will be expected of their students when they go into 

 industrial occupations. It should be well understood that the manu- 

 facturer does not expect to find master workmen or good overseers 

 in the chemists he engages. No one is capable of directing a factory 

 without having followed for a considerable time the course of the 

 several shops. This is not the part the chemist is to perform; nor 

 is it his duty to keep an eye upon the workmen. He must first of 

 all things — and it is an absolute condition — be in the current of the 

 science, and more especially, of course, of the parts of the science 

 that treat of the industrial branch to which he applies himself. He 

 should be familiar with all the details of mineral analysis, qualitative 

 and quantitative, of organic analysis and industrial analyses; and be 

 skillful in delicate manipulations and preparations. He should be 

 acquainted with what is required in the principal chemical indus- 

 tries and familiar with the most practical general methods in use 

 for solving the problems that will be submitted to him, to such an 

 extent as to be competent to improve in quality and value the 

 manufactures which he will be charged with inspecting and perhaps 

 directing. And he should, finally, have a taste for original research, 



