JANUARY 19, 1912] 
enced men. As concerns pensions, one 
that does not become assured until the end 
of a thirty-year period of service, while a 
great boon to those who finally receive it 
and a welcome aid to the president in un- 
loading undesired or superannuated pro- 
fessors, nevertheless fails to furnish that 
assurance of security in case of disability 
or later financial difficulties which encour- 
ages the professor to satisfactorily equip 
his library, to travel, to study and to sur- 
round himself by the broadening influences 
which are essential to his greatest intellec- 
tual development and to his greatest use- 
fulness to the students who come under his 
instruction. In this matter of pensions 
and conditions surrounding them we have 
a valuable lesson to learn from Germany. 
It has been argued by some that the 
early assurance of a pension robs the pros- 
pective recipient of initiative and enthusi- 
asm in his chosen profession and encour- 
ages a letting up of his intellectual activ- 
ities. To such as advance this areu- 
ment the writer begs to enter an emphatic 
denial of the justness of the accusation, for 
from his personal acquaintance with pro- 
fessors in many of the leading German uni- 
versities and his observation of their spirit 
of research, he is convinced of the utter in- 
correctness of such a position. Indeed, no- 
where in the world could one find greater 
devotion to duty, greater willingness to 
make personal sacrifices, or greater zeal in 
investigation, than among the professors 
of these German universities, who can look 
forward complacently to the future if dis- 
abled, and in any event with the comfort 
and knowledge that their families, after 
their work is done, will be cared for prop- 
erly as a reward for a lifetime of faithful 
publie service. 
Finally, this society will do well to en- 
courage the development in our universi- 
ties of higher and broader graduate courses 
SCLENCE 87 
in the applied sciences related to agricul- 
ture. Let us use our influence as a body to 
secure from the Carnegie Foundation, for 
the teacher and investigator in the smaller 
land-grant colleges, the same fair and just 
recognition for quality and amount of pub- 
lie service rendered as is accorded to the 
teacher of mathematics or of the classics in 
the older classical colleges of the country. 
If necessary, let the American Society of 
Agronomy urge upon congress the pro- 
vision of a pension system for the land- 
grant college, based upon a reasonable 
probationary limit of service as a condition 
for its becoming assured. If to this these 
colleges will add the sabbatical year, or will 
allow a full half-year in every five, and 
will give adequate and progressive ad- 
vances in salary with the years of service, 
we shall soon see plenty of young men fit- 
ting themselves well for the work of teach- 
ing and research. 
In closing I would not fail to emphasize 
that young men entering our profession 
should do so with the missionary spirit and 
with the desire to serve their fellows upper- 
most in mind, but the situation to-day is 
such that many who set out with courage 
are forced, out of justice to their families 
and through failure to secure the reason- 
able comforts and necessities of life, to 
seek, against their will, such financial re- 
turns in other callings as are rarely the re- 
ward of the agricultural teacher and in- 
vestigator. 
H. J. WHEELER 
THE INTRODUCTION OF PHYSICAL CHEM-— 
ICAL CONCEPTIONS IN THE EARLY 
STAGES OF THE TEACHING OF 
CHEMISTRY 1 
THE question I have been asked to discuss 
is not a new one, but is, in my opinion, one 
of fundamental importance. Whenever any 
*Paper read before the American Chemical So- 
ciety in Washington, December 27, 1911. 
