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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 776 



of English composition as I have described 

 are two. The first is closer contact with 

 professional departments. Such contact 

 has already been secured to some extent in 

 the higher years, where professional re- 

 ports are reviewed by members of the 

 English department. This, however, is 

 likely to resolve itself into a mere correc- 

 tion of faults in the technique of expres- 

 sion. What is needed rather is discussion 

 and reports in which from the outset the 

 teacher of engineering and the teacher of 

 English shall cooperate; which shall be 

 "both conceived and carried out with the 

 purpose not only of securing accuracy in 

 details of fact, but also of studying the 

 theories of thought and of expression which 

 underlie such work. For instance, in con- 

 nection with the reports spoken of above, it 

 las for some time been a dream, unrealized 

 as yet on account of tabular view adjust- 

 ments and other practical difficulties, that 

 first-year students might be taken in small 

 sections, in the company of an instructor 

 from an engineering department and an- 

 other from the department of English, to 

 study and report on some simple assign- 

 ment along the lines of their chosen profes- 

 sion. The experiment, I believe, would be 

 worth all the trouble of arrangement, and 

 would do much in stimulating their powers 

 of observation and in teaching them that 

 the mastery of an English style is no orna- 

 mental acquisition, but the means of ex- 

 pressing yourself, your attainments and 

 your facts, so as to become a moving force 

 in the world. 



The second need of this teaching is that 

 of teachers. In other subjects, teachers— 

 the good ones — are said to be born, not 

 made. The ideal teacher of composition 

 could hardly be born, for the limitations of 

 human nature preclude him. To criticize 

 all thought— the substance of it, from 

 which alone the form depends— to sympa- 

 thize with every point of view, to win the 



confidence of every type of mind— these 

 tasks require some genuine magnanimity 

 of soul. No man can fully meet so large 

 a requirement, yet here and there are 

 found persons not ill adapted on one side 

 or another for the task. Nothing can 

 come amiss— scraps of general information, 

 breadth of interest, the power of drawing 

 out other people's ideas, above all warmth 

 of heart. Meanwhile with whatever equip- 

 ment, lucky if with a trace of some neces- 

 sary quality, one does one's best. It is at 

 least something to have conceived the sort 

 of man one ought to be. 



A. T. Robinson 

 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 



TEE CONDITIONS AFFECTING CHEMISTRY 

 IN NEW rOBK'^ 



In assuming the chair, I am confident 

 that the coming year will be one of great 

 progress in our section's history, not 

 through any merit of its officers, but 

 through the ever-increasing spirit of co- 

 operation among the members, and the 

 rapid strides which research and industry 

 are making in this country. You will hear 

 reports, this evening, of two important 

 general meetings that interested our mem- 

 bership, that of our own society at Detroit 

 and that of the International Congress of 

 Applied Chemistry at London. In both, 

 members of this section bore a worthy 

 share, and it is a gratifying tribute to 

 American progress in science and industry, 

 that the International Congress chose 

 America for its next meeting-place. It is 

 not only the foreigner who lands at Ellis 

 Island that deems America synonymous 

 with New York, and the members of this 

 section must be prepared to do their full 

 duty, during the next three years, in order 

 that our foreign brethren may carry back 



'Address of the chairman of the New York 

 Section of the American Chemical Society, deliv- 

 ered October 8, 1909. 



