BIOGRAPHICAL MEMORANDA 



not resist the temptation to complain, during meetings with the build- 

 ing committee, that 'the last paper of a scientist is the description of 

 his new laboratory', although this did not diminish the gratitude with 

 which Kluyver greeted the plans. The first pile was driven into the 

 ground in 1955, and in the end the new institute, built according to 

 Kluyver's specifications, was not ready for occupancy, as a precious 

 heritage, until 1958. 



In 1954 he returned enthusiastically from his extensive tour of the 

 U.S.A. where, jointly with Van Niel, he had delivered the Prather 

 lectures at Harvard University. The common European impression, 

 that the supposed supremacy of scientific research in America need 

 not be taken seriously, he denied emphatically. He was full of admi- 

 ration for the American achievements in his own field, and searched 

 for the secrets that could explain the success of those research insti- 

 tutions. Now that the authorities had made available the bricks for 

 the new building, Kluyver occupied himself with the question how, in 

 the light of his recent experiences, it could be appropriately staffed 

 with brains. The problem of equipping the new institute with modern 

 apparatus too had occupied him during his travels, and the purchas- 

 ing plan he formulated in 1955 greatly benefited by the information 

 he had gathered. 



Van Niel's visit to Europe, during which he spent several lengthy so- 

 journs in the Delft laboratory, acted as a strong and refreshing stim- 

 ulus. There was ample time and opportunity for extensive discussions, 

 not only between the master and his former pupil, but also between 

 Van Niel and the coworkers in the laboratory. The return of the asso- 

 ciate, Verhoeven, who had spent a year in the U.S.A. as a Fellow of 

 the Rockefeller Foundation, contributed further to the anticipation of 

 modernization and of the fresh start that Kluyver would initiate in 

 the new institute. 



The tragic element that scarcely came out into the open was, ob- 

 viously, that both Kluyver and Van Niel prepared a new future for 

 Delft microbiology in which neither of them would play a part. It 

 had penetrated to only very few of those who daily surrounded Kluy- 

 ver that only mental energy kept him going. But pupil and master 

 realized that this was to be their last meeting, and the farewell in the 

 spring of 1956 was difficult for both. 



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