27 



times brought up again! It happened on occasion that Beijerinck 

 arranged a social evening for students at his house but forgot to 

 invite the assistants. When, afterwards, he tried to make amends for 

 his negUgence his genuine remorse was almost painful to witness. 



It was a matter of keen regret to Beijerinxk that especially in the 

 later years only a comparatively small number of students attended 

 his lectures. This was no doubt due to the circumstance that the 

 study of microbiology in Delft was not compulsory. Nevertheless it is 

 indisputable that Beijerinck put his stamp upon the scientific 

 development of those students who worked for any considerable 

 period in his laboratory. 



The number of students who stayed with Beijerinck long enough 

 to take a Doctor's degree under his direction was, however, not large. 

 Appendix D gives a list of their theses. It must be added that several 

 of them were the result of experimental work partly or entirely done 

 elsewhere (van Hall, Rant, Heymann, and Gerretsen). 



The initiation undergone by students in Beijerinck's laboratory 

 was too searching to be pleasant. They were weighed and of ten found 

 wanting, and woe to them when this w^as the case! So little a thing 

 as a drop of water spilt on the bench — w^hich drop was then demon- 

 stratively removed — might give rise to a burst of anger. Not only had 

 the students got to listen again and again to a summing up of all the 

 stupid things they had said or done, but also they were told of all 

 the blunders they were likely to make in future. 



Characteristic of Beijerinck's attitude of mind towards his stu- 

 dents is the following speech made to a victim who had failed to give 

 a correct answer to one of Beijerinck's questions: "Sir, there are 

 two types of monkeys. One type is interested if one shows a coin and 

 will hold it firmly, the other type will at once drop it. The first type 

 can be trained, the second type cannot. If you were a monkey, you 

 would belong to the second type!" 



A good idea of the atmosphere in Beijerinck's laboratory was 

 given by Prof essor Jan Smit in his obituary speech i) entitled "Beije- 

 rinck's levenswerk" ("Beijerinck's life-work"), here translated: 



"Then began a period of restless scientific wotk with the co-opera- 

 tion of a great number of pupils from Holland and abroad. It is 

 almost impossible to give an adequate idea of it. One has to have 

 witnessed the high tension found there, and to have heard the con- 

 versations, sometimes lasting for hours, with one of the experimenters, 

 where usually Beijerinck did the talking and the other the listening 

 — fascinated by the stream of surprising and new remarks with 

 thousands of suggestions for new experiments which the professor 

 poured out over his unfortunate head. The student tried to take it all 

 in, but at last was almost in despair, because his head was unable to 

 contain that overpowering amount while Beijerinck, as fresh as 



1) Chemisch Weekblad 28, 94, 193L 



