Apeil 23, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



649 



it is a noteworthy fact tliat one of these 

 men (Goessmann) is a German, while 

 among the others were Atwater, Storer, 

 Caldwell and Johnson, who had all derived 

 their inspiration from study at German 

 universities. Thus this country owes a 

 debt of gratitude to Germany which may 

 not be sufficiently appreciated; and not- 

 withstanding the splendid agricultural 

 chemical work done in France, England 

 and elsewhere, Germany has long been 

 looked upon as the mecca for the agricul- 

 tural chemists of the entire world. 



Such having been the case, the situation 

 to-day is of particular interest in view of 

 the attitude of Dr. H. Thiol, of the German 

 Ministry of Agriculture, who at the Inter- 

 national Congress of Agriculture at Vienna 

 in 1907 presented and supported a scheme 

 of agricultural education which shall en- 

 tirely eliminate agricultural chemistry as 

 such, which he designates as a "bastard" 

 of various sciences, a subject essentially 

 dragged in to fill a temporary gap. The 

 effect of such powerful influence is already 

 becoming strikingly evident in Germany, 

 where the professorship of agricultural 

 chemistry in certain cases, as in Gottingen 

 and Halle, has been reduced in grade. Two 

 other universities, Giessen and Kiel, now 

 offer no facilities for the study of the sub- 

 ject under specialists. In Leipsic agricul- 

 tural chemistry, formerly represented by 

 men like Knop and Stohmaim, has now 

 been entirely banished. In certain univer- 

 sities the professors of agricultural chem- 

 istry are now given no seat nor vote in the 

 faculties and no less prominent a teacher 

 than the late Dr. Emmerling, of Kiel, was 

 never promoted beyond the grade of 

 "Privatdozent," and even this position 

 has now become vacant. Fortunately at 

 the agricultural "Hochschulen" and 

 "Akademien" the situation is not yet so 

 grave. Nevertheless, Professor Pfeiffer, to 

 whose presentation of the subject I am 



indebted for the foregoing facts, states that 

 to the best of his knowledge there is not 

 now a single "Privatdozent" in the subject 

 of agricultural chemistry in the entire 

 German empire, from which it would ap- 

 pear that in a few years, if the present 

 policy of Director Thiol is upheld, the stu- 

 dent of agricultural chemistry will cer- 

 tainly no longer look to Germany for in- 

 struction and inspiration. This view-point 

 of Thiol's appears to be analogous to that 

 of a former president of a purely agricul- 

 tural college in the United States, who held 

 that when botany, chemistry, physiology, 

 geology, mineralogy, zoology, etc., had been 

 taught, agriculture, essentially a "bastard" 

 of these sciences, had already been taught, 

 and hence agriculture should be utterly 

 eliminated from the curriculum of the agri- 

 cultural college. Indeed, it is hard to see, 

 if this logic is correct, why chemists should 

 be trained especially in the chemistry of 

 dye-stuffs and dyeing, or indeed in any 

 particular department of chemistry. This 

 same view relative to agricultural chem- 

 istry appears to be held by the dean of the 

 college of agriculture and mechanic arts of 

 at least one large university in this coun- 

 try. An even more dangerous and insidi- 

 ous assault upon the field of agricultural 

 chemistry is the encroachment, in the 

 United States, of the field of agronomy, 

 which is becoming more and more apparent 

 with the establishment of independent 

 chemical laboratories in such departments. 

 "To be, or not to be, that is the ques- 

 tion!" Surely if agricultural chemistry 

 has filled its little niche temporarily and 

 has now become superfluous and useless it 

 should be cast adrift without delay ; but on 

 the other hand it is well to consider if this 

 is the case. No one will probably dispute 

 that a reasonable familiarity with the 

 whole field of organic, inorganic and phys- 

 ical chemistry should be prerequisite to a 

 course in agricultural chemistry, as weU as 



