368 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIV. No. 1399 



scientific men and discovery can best be 

 utilized in industrial development and are 

 apt to discount ujiiversity research because it 

 deals with pure science, the employer being 

 unable to see the practical advantage to him 

 of such work. 



That this question is fundamental there is 

 no doubt. One has but to glance over the 

 advances made in any of our leading in- 

 dustries during the last twenty years to note 

 and appreciate the importance of the scien- 

 tifically trained man in, and his services to, 

 our commercial organizations. In fact, when 

 we mention coal and coal gas, dyes, ex- 

 plosives, cellulose, rubber, cement, pottery, 

 photography, food, brewing, etc., our minds 

 immediately refer to the great progress 

 achieved recently in the industries because 

 of the scientific worker. During the past few 

 years scientific development of warfare has 

 brought the pure and applied scientist to- 

 gether to an extent which was before deemed 

 impossible, and this is a happy augury as to 

 the future collaboration between these classes. 

 The old isolation is now impossible and yet 

 the question remains, as before, as to the best 

 methods of training our graduates in science 

 to fit them for industrial work. In other 

 words, how can we best get team-work be- 

 tween the scientific producer and the scien- 

 tific user? It has been said^ that "the two 

 fundamental essentials to successful team- 

 work are an intelligent mutual understand- 

 ing and a real spirit of give and take cooper- 

 ation." The first of these will come with 

 time, experience and education; the second 

 may be discussed under the two following 

 heads : 



First, Industry and the College Graduate. — 

 From opinions expressed by leaders in the 

 industrial field, and from the questionnaires 

 sent out by them concerning applicants for 

 employment, it seems that the character, 

 initiative and resourcefulness of the young 

 graduate are valued by industry equally with 

 technical knowledge. In many cases scien- 

 tific training is considered the less important 

 of the above characteristics. If this be true, 



2 H. P. Talbot, /. I. and Eng. Chem., Oct., 1920. 



it necessarily follows that an increased amount 

 of time must be spent by the student in de- 

 veloping wide academic relationships. In 

 other words a wide, basic training to de- 

 velop observation, reasoning, imagination and 

 character in general is essential. The fact 

 that, in our educational processes, we are 

 getting farther and farther away from this 

 idea of a wide, basic training, does not need 

 discussion. This is literally an age of intense 

 specialization. The question asked by college 

 graduates is not " what work will give me 

 the best and broadest education " but " what 

 courses will enable me to get the best paid 

 job as soon as I graduate ? " It seems to the 

 writer that specialization in the secondary 

 schools and the first two years of the college 

 course should be reduced to a minimum and 

 be devoted to a broad, basic education. Even 

 when specialization is begim. a knowledge of 

 fundamentals and principles, together with 

 an ability to apply them to any concrete 

 problem, is of much greater value to the 

 student than the possession of an endless 

 chain of facts. Very happily this idea is 

 becoming more and more popular with vnriters 

 of chemical text-books and our courses, even 

 in elementary chemistry, are less and less 

 descriptive as time goes on. The same con- 

 ception may profitably be applied to a selec- 

 tion of courses as well as to the material in 

 any one course. Gas analysis is simply an 

 application of quantitative analysis, and the 

 student who has mastered the principles of 

 the larger subject should be able to apply 

 them to the former without taking a formal 

 course in that subject. A knowledge of 

 English grammar is more important to him 

 than a course in water analysis if he has to 

 choose between the two. Unfortunately, this 

 point of view has been grasped neither by the 

 student nor by many employers, though the 

 results have shown the argument to be a 

 sound one. In this connection it is inter- 

 esting to note that one of our prominent 

 eastern universities intentionally omits such 

 subjects as water analysis from its courses 

 required of men specializing in chemistry, 

 stating that the time thus saved may be 



