Marcu 15, 1912] 
be ‘‘good enough’’ for a temporary pur- 
pose to become a permanent standard of 
attainment. These latter conditions must, 
however, always be reckoned with, and it is 
not my purpose to spend time in deploring 
them, or in regretting the conditions of the 
past, but to ask what encouragement may 
be offered to the analyst of to-day and what 
the outlook is for the future. 
My chief criticism of the situation in the 
recent past would be this: That the chem- 
ical analysts, as a class, have failed to take 
advantage of their opportunities, and that 
those intrusted with their training are con- 
siderably responsible for this situation. 
Specifically, I mean that too many prac- 
tising analysts allow themselves to remain 
in ignorance of the aids to accurate, intelli- 
gent work which that branch of chemistry 
known as physical chemistry, in a broad 
sense, has contributed, and that, while our 
students are usually made familiar at some 
time with much of this material, it is not 
coordinated with their training as analysts. 
We train too much for manipulative skill 
and analytical facility and do not suffi- 
ciently educate toward that critical intelli- 
gence which enables a man to test his own 
work, to view it from the outside, as it 
were, and will not allow him to regard it as 
satisfactory until he has not only assured 
himself with respect to such matters as the 
purity of his reagents or the stability of 
his glassware, but has also studied the ef- 
fect of a variation of individual factors 
and of the chemical conditions, so far as 
his time will permit. Obviously, a practis- 
ing analyst can rarely afford the time to 
make his methods of analysis the subject 
of exhaustive investigations, but some- 
thing far less than this, yet considerably 
more than is too often done, would have 
prevented many deplorable happenings, 
ineluding the publication of many unre- 
liable analytical procedures to the be- 
SCIENCE 
399 
wilderment of the entire chemical frater- 
nity. 
That the analyst who is ambitious to 
make the most of his privileges to-day is in 
a position to obtain a larger measure of aid 
and comfort than formerly is indicated by 
an instance cited by Dr. Bottger. He 
contrasts the work of Professor Clemens 
Winkler upon the atomic weight of nickel 
with the later work of Professor J. W. 
Richards, which showed the figure obtained 
by Winkler to be in error by 0.3 per cent. 
Winkler was highly skilled in the technique 
required for the work which he undertook, 
and possessed special mental aptitude for 
the task, as Richards himself has testified. 
It appears, then, reasonable to conclude that 
Richards, although similarly equipped, 
succeeded in attaining greater accuracy 
than Winkler rather because of his greater 
ability to recognize those factors which 
would lead to error than because of greater 
ability to overcome the difficulties after 
they had been recognized. Richards had 
at his command a qualitative and, in some 
eases, a quantitative knowledge of phenom- 
ena, unrecognized until recently, which 
permitted not only the detection of new 
sources of inaccuracy, but often enabled 
him to estimate the extent of the errors in- 
volved. He made the knowledge of the day 
serve his keen intellect to its utmost. He 
took advantage of his privileges. 
But perhaps some of you will say, ‘‘This 
is atomic weight work, not analytical chem- 
istry. Those men are ripe scholars and in- 
vestigators who can command a knowledge 
of the advances of their science. All this 
has little to do with me, a busy analyst, or 
an unripe scholar.’’ That, however, is 
just where the issue really lies, and it is 
because so many have thought and still 
think that a great deal of the accumulated 
chemical knowledge in the field of general 
or physical chemistry is ‘‘beyond them’”’ 
