154 MORRIS LOEB 



organization enabled them to gather strength by coopera- 

 tion and let them experience the stimulus of generous rivalry. 



And now we have entered into a new era, practically with 

 the opening of the twentieth century, that of the utter aboli- 

 tion of national boundaries so far as scientific endeavor is 

 concerned. A new chemical discovery in Paris is known in 

 London, New York and Tokio in far less time than was con- 

 sumed in the transmission of Priestley's or Cavendish's com- 

 munications to the Royal Society in London, and the time 

 is rapidly passing when the possession and guarding of a 

 scientific secret could be deemed a national advantage. If it 

 be deemed conducive to international amity that the young 

 men of all nations should meet at the Olympian games, in 

 contests of brawn and motor-nerves, how much more impor- 

 tant is it that there be occasional interchanges of thought 

 and knowledge! And yet, we wonder whether the press of 

 New York will afford as many paragraphs to the forthcoming 

 International Congress of Applied Chemistry, for matter 

 supplied to it free of expense, as it has published pages of 

 expensive cablegrams from Stockholm? We do not expect 

 any mobs of frenzied cheerers to throng around the arena 

 of scientific debate; and yet we know that the impression 

 which our foreign visitors will take home of the progress in 

 American science and scientific industry will be of far greater 

 importance to the esteem in which our country will be held 

 abroad, than the number of cups which the " Finland " will 

 bring home from Stockholm. Our individual responsibility 

 in this Congress is as great as our individual opportunity. 



To meet the leaders of chemical knowledge and of chemical 

 manufacture, from abroad as well as at home, to listen to a free 

 exchange of thought and practical experience, are privileges 

 for which innumerable chemists have traveled to Berlin, Lon- 

 don, Paris, Vienna, and Rome. We all now have these chances 



