Apbil 16, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



603 



that is demanded and required. Here, 

 then, is the problem to be solved: "What 

 shall be provided in the undergraduate 

 course or school, and shall post-graduate 

 study and training be provided and car- 

 ried on under the direction and manage- 

 ment of the educational institution, or 

 shall the training, which might be pro- 

 vided by post-graduate study, be deferred 

 and be supplied by actual practise in the 

 works? How, and by whom, shall this 

 very important question be answered? 

 The demand of the present, and of the 

 immediate future, is for men who are able 

 to work independently, to take care of the 

 problems arising, and work them out to 

 successful i^ue, with profitable result. 

 Directors in the industries and employers 

 have little time, energy or freedom from 

 detail, to devote to the training of young 

 men in fundamental principles. Yet ex- 

 perience can be had only in practise, and 

 this must be paid for in the time, energy 

 and material apparently wasted by young 

 men in the earlier periods of their life 

 work. 



But the question still persists. Could 

 the young man working under intelligent 

 direction in the systematic application of 

 the principles he has been taught save 

 time? Will the work of one, two or three 

 years under intelligent and patient train- 

 ing of competent teachers save time of the 

 young man and his employers and relieve 

 both of embarra^ment, loss and disap- 

 pointment ? 



The laudation of the German chemical 

 industry has extended to all nations, and 

 is probably justified. In some of the most 

 successful branches of the German chem- 

 ical industry the practise is to take into the 

 works only men who have served as 

 Privatdocent in university or technical 

 schools, and to become Privatdocent the 

 candidate must generally have taken a 

 course in post-graduate work in investiga- 



tion and in the solution of problems ; work 

 leading to the doctor's degree. First, a 

 training for systematic applied work, then 

 experience in teaching. The value of the 

 latter in the preparation of young men for 

 life work is, I believe, too little recognized. 

 It is certainly true that one of the most 

 excellent means of securing a thorough 

 and fundamental knowledge of a subject 

 is found in an effort to impart such knowl- 

 edge to others. 



I have said elsewhere that an important 

 adjunct to the successful application of 

 knowledge is a trained imagination. Not 

 an imagination "like the baseless fabric of 

 a vision," nor "such stuff as dreams are 

 made on," but an imagination based upon 

 knowledge which furnishes a vision of 

 what may be accomplished and suggests 

 means for accomplishment. 



So it seems to me that the proper func- 

 tion of the undergraduate school is to com- 

 municate knowledge of facts and methods 

 and that the function of the post-graduate 

 school is to furnish training in the applica- 

 tion of knowledge to the solution of prob- 

 lems, to the training of the imagination, 

 and thus to meet the demands which the 

 industries, consciously or not, are making. 



A most useful beginning in such work 

 has been made in the laboratories for re- 

 search in industrial chemistry lately estab- 

 lished in some of the leading technical in- 

 stitutions. Here the subjects for research, 

 the applications of knowledge, are not of 

 an abstract but of a concrete character, 

 and provide training in work which may 

 produce results immediately useful in the 

 arts of life. Here the problems arising in 

 the industries in every-day work are 

 solved by students, under direction of 

 men who have themselves been trained in 

 the solution of such problems. By such 

 work the imagination is stimulated and at 

 the same time trained and directed in 

 proper channels; habits of application es- 



