SECTION B.— CHEMISTRY. 



THE TRAINING OF THE CHEMIST FOR 

 THE SERVICE OF THE COMMUNITY 



ADDRESS BY 



PROF. J. C. PHILIP, O.B.E., D.Sc, F.R.S., 



PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 



My immediate predecessors in the presidency of this Section devoted 

 their addresses to a review of recent progress in special fields of chemical 

 knowledge, to the extension of which they themselves had materially 

 contributed. On the present occasion I invite your attention to a topic 

 of a different and a less technical character, namely, the chemist's place 

 in the modern community and the kind of training necessary for an effi- 

 cient discharge of his professional duties. One aspect of this topic was 

 discussed at the Toronto meeting in 1924 by Sir Robert Robertson, who 

 chose ' Chemistry and the State ' as the subject of his address to Section B. 

 The gradual growth in the official status of the chemist was traced from 

 the point at which he was perforce summoned to assist in the defence of 

 the State to his association in the post-war period with a variety of Govern- 

 ment Departments and Government activities. This association has 

 steadily extended in the intervening period, but, apart altogether from 

 State activities, the science of chemistry and its applications are touching 

 the life of the individual citizen more and more closely every day. 



We have indeed moved far from the point of view expressed by 

 Lavoisier's judge : ' La Republique n'a pas besoin de savants,' but even 

 now there is often in influential quarters an inadequate grasp of the place 

 and potentialities of the scientist. In the popular mind, and indeed by 

 many who, to judge from their position, should be better informed, the 

 chemist is still frequently associated merely with pharmacy or warfare, 

 in neglect of the innumerable contacts of chemistry with the industry 

 of the country, with the activities of the State, and with the health and 

 comfort of its citizens. Let me begin by enlarging on these contacts 

 and by emphasising the varied ways in which chemists are serving the 

 community. 



In relation first to those essential activities of any society which is intellec- 

 tually alive — the pursuit of new learning and the cultivation of the spirit 

 of inquiry — chemistry is in the forefront. For the promotion of natural 

 knowledge and the increase of our understanding of the universe, the 

 chemist has laboured with extraordinary success, both in his own fields 

 and in those borderlands where chemistry marches with other sciences. 



