276 Proceedings of Indiana Academy of Science. 
mental proof of matters that are already well known and of common 
knowledge to better informed researchers. With this training in funda- 
mental facts, laws and theories of modern chemistry and, indeed, as a 
necessary part of it, must be a good knowledge of chemical literature and 
a familiarity with the important journals containing original papers on 
subjects of chemistry and, so far as possible. physics, biology, medicine, 
engineering, etc..—subjects closely allied to or involving the applications 
of chemistry. 
This thorough knowledge of the science and of the recorded labors of a 
multitude of investigators cannot come from necessarily brief and cireum- 
scribed courses of lectures and laboratory work involved in a four-year 
course in a college. No matter how enthusiastic. intelligent or industrious 
the student may be, or how able and inspiring the professor, it is a human 
impossibility to absorb and assimilate even a major fragment of the complex 
material of a science as highly developed as is chemistry, in the time that is 
allotted to this subject in a well balanced college curriculum. This is 
recognized by practically every one who has been through the under- 
graduate work of the liberal arts or science courses of the college, and who 
has later gone out to apply his knowledge to practical purposes, and every 
good teacher knows that his courses, wisely administered, can at best 
provide a moderately good training in the outstanding fundamentals of 
specified and limited fields of the science and teach the student something 
of the methods of independent and effective study. Real accomplishment, 
on the part of the student, usually comes some years after graduation and 
then only in case patient study and clear thinking have produced a certain 
maturity of mind,—which comes te a too small number of college graduates 
at any period. 
As looking toward the development of research chemists, the great 
work of the college is then to teach the main fabric of the science as 
well as possible and to develop industrious habits and logical, orderly 
minds, capable of clear and independent thinking. This effort usually en- 
counters many obstacles. The student must necessarily pursue a number of 
studies in addition to his major work and this does not make for concentra- 
tion of thought and energy. We do not. by any means, propose that under- 
graduate work should be limited to a single science or that entirely un- 
related studies should be ignored. At this period in his education the 
student is not prepared for specialization to any considerable extent and 
the broadening influence of the study of mathematics, English literature 
and foreign languages, and of other sciences than his own, is too well 
understood and too universally conceded to require any detailed argument. 
In addition to this impracticability of concentration upon a single science, 
one may remark the great multitude of “activities” which serve to divert 
the attention of the student and to generate in him an attitude toward 
his studies which does not promote concentration or tend toward clear and 
profound thinking, which we have recognized as essential to the efficient 
investigator, or toward a recognition of Comparative values of men and 
things. Many of these activities are in themselves harmless, or even whole- 
some and desirable but their influence is. undeniably, as I have stated and 
this has been a subject of frequent comment. A single example. may. be 
cited. Our own college daily (The Purdue Exponent) carries a feature 
