726 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 725 



England, the realization of this situation, and 

 the scholarship and standing of Professor 

 Kipping, all vouch for the sincerity of the 

 views expressed; and these considerations 

 make it more surprising that this able student 

 and teacher should, as reported, deliberately 

 advise against the methods of teaching in- 

 dustrial chemistry which are now recognized 

 as capable of giving practical results. The 

 unfortunately conservative views expressed are 

 still more interesting, because Professor 

 Kipping explicitly states that " This section 

 . . . does not attempt to distinguish pure 

 from applied chemistry." This sentence 

 should be noted; for it implicitly recognizes 

 the common sense of the question. What is it 

 good for; a question which should be the text 

 and guide of all teaching and research. 



The views of Professor Kipping are told in 

 these words: 



On consulting the opinions of the manufac- 

 turers, it would seem that they attach great im- 

 portance to what is called the " practical side " ; 

 they believe that, in addition to a knowledge of 

 theoretical chemistry, the prospective works-chem- 

 ist should also have some acquaintance with engi- 

 neering, should understand the apparatus and 

 machinery used in the particular manufacturing 

 operations with which he is going to deal, and 

 should have had practical experience in working 

 the given process. . . . The arguments in favor of 

 this view, that it is a hybrid chemist-engineer who 

 is required in a chemical works, seem to me to be 

 fundamentally unsound, and the kind of training 

 suggested by them for the works-chemist can only 

 result in the production of a sort of combined 

 analytical machine and foreman. . . . We can not 

 possibly expect such a poorly trained jack-of-all- 

 trades to run a chemical works successfully in the 

 face of competition directed by a large staff of 

 scientific experts in chemistry and engineering. 



These quotations are worth reading care- 

 fully; for they show two things: one, that I 

 have not misrepresented Professor Kipping; 

 and the other, that he has considered the 

 situation with some care. But the quotations 

 also show another thing, namely, that Pro- 

 fessor Kipping has never been in active re- 

 sponsibility of a chemical works and really 

 does not understand practical industry; and 

 because of his own work and standing, his 



address may cause much hindrance and 

 damage among the readers of Science. I ven- 

 ture to argue that the views of Professor 

 Kipping are wrong; and that, in view of the 

 necessities of American chemical engineering, 

 at least, they are dangerous. What is needed 

 is just this " combined analytical machine and 

 foreman." 



In discussing the broader relations of in- 

 dustrial education. Dr. Andrew S. Draper, 

 state commissioner of education of New York, 

 has most wisely pointed out the over-balance 

 of intellectualism as compared with industrial- 

 ism in our whole scheme of education; and 

 this applies also with force and reason to our 

 splendid system of training chemists in tech- 

 nical school, college and university. We 

 are in no danger now — it may have been dif- 

 ferent twenty years ago— from the practical 

 trenching on the theoretical. We have well- 

 trained students of chemistry, trained in 

 theory and research, by the hundreds; but 

 they were started in a theoretical atmosphere, 

 and they find exceeding difficulty in getting 

 out of that atmosphere. These fine young 

 students have information by the brainful, 

 but they are "muscle-bound," to use the 

 metaphor of an eminent professional athlete. 

 And worse than that, these prodigies of 

 academic training have not the faintest notion 

 of how to apply one thousandth part of what 

 they know in a merely intellectual way. What 

 these graduates in chemistry might do if they 

 could have learned the work-shop ideas of the 

 ii^e, the need, the trouble, the remedy — what 

 they might do if they had some notion of this 

 practical side, can be only surmised; but in- 

 dustrial necessities demand that the obvious 

 gap in our system of chemical training be 

 filled up without delay. 



It must be noted that it takes all kinds' of 

 men to make a world. Per one superin- 

 tendent of a chemical works, there must be 

 half a dozen foremen, and perhaps a dozen 

 analysts and assayers; and it is desirable that 

 every workman should know something of 

 both the theory and practise of his trade. If 

 a young man is content to plan for a subor- 

 dinate position, as a mere analyst or research 



