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SCIENCE 



[Vol. LV, No. 1429 



and the university shall succeed in evolving 

 proper and efEective methods for the scientific 

 training of the youth of the land, since it is 

 upon the mental equij)ment and the mental 

 habits of our present and future students that 

 the future of the science depends. 



I propose to discuss certain phases of this 

 subject from the standpoint of the college 

 teacher. We respect the viewpoint of those 

 practical men who, like Mr. Edison, feel that 

 about the only trouble with the college gradu- 

 ate is that he knows nothing and is good for 

 nothing, also of those other, perhaps broader 

 minded, technical men who recognize the value 

 of college training but who believe that the 

 teachings of the class room and student labora- 

 tory are too far removed from the problems and 

 methods of industrial applications. We also 

 realize that some of our eminent research 

 chemists are insisting that the college and the 

 university should busy themselves with funda- 

 mental principles and that thej' should keep 

 hands off the plant processes, while others are 

 equally emphatic in the view that research 

 should be more along practical lines. 



Without, at present, presuming to argue any 

 of these questions and respecting the integrity 

 of all who offer them, we respectfully submit 

 that in the effort of the college teacher to ad- 

 minister courses of training, either routine or 

 research in purpose, there are certain factors 

 that constantly baffle and discourage, that these 

 factors are to a considerable extent under the 

 control of some of those who complain of our 

 shortcomings and even that the continuance of 

 such conditions is directly traceable to the 

 activities of some of the critics. This may 

 seem to be a statement that requires justifica- 

 tion. 



I take it that every one will agree that the 

 study of chemistry as a preparation for suc- 

 cessful research or for work in the application 

 of chemistry to practical problems is an enter- 

 prise that calls for the concentration and 

 supreme effort of high grade intelligence. Any 

 person who expects to devote merely left-over 

 energy and surplus thought to superficial 

 aspects of any science, — and especially of 

 chemistry, — is foreordained to a career of 

 attainment that is mediocre or worse. The stu- 



dents of chemistry of past years who consist- 

 ently followed the practice of "living the life" 

 in college, making of themselves "all-around 

 men" by the time-hallowed practice of taking 

 part in every possible activity on the campus 

 and off it, except the one for which they paid 

 their money and for which they sacrificed the 

 best years of their lives, — these men, with few 

 exceptions, now make up the army of fillers of 

 small positions, doers of small things and 

 thinkers of small thoughts. They have a cer- 

 tain routine part in the routine affairs of 

 science but when they are gone their places 

 will easih' be filled by others who have fol- 

 lowed the same line of reasoning and of con- 

 duet. 



The college teacher who is dull and uninspir- 

 ing in his contact with students will have a 

 class of dull and uninspired students. This, 

 no matter how well trained he may be or how 

 earnestly he may desire to fulfill his mission as 

 a teacher. But if the teacher is all that we 

 maj" desire to see in a teacher : — well grounded 

 in his subject, of broad vision and purpose, 

 energetic, inspired and inspiring, — he may fii-e 

 his students with boundless zeal for the things 

 and deeds of science, he may grip their intel- 

 lects and emotions while in the class room or 

 laboratory, he may fill them with the highest 

 kind of resolve for high endeavor, but he can 

 not make true students of science of them when 

 the whole atmopshere of the college is that of 

 one grand hurly-burly of everything under 

 heaven except study. Every teacher who hears 

 this or who reads it knows that, to far too 

 great an extent, this is the atmosphere of the 

 modern American college. Some of our atmos- 

 pheres are tetter than others, — or we might 

 even say that some are worse than others. But 

 when the student goes out from his session 

 with the best teacher in the best college in the 

 land he immediately finds himself in the midst 

 of a multitude of distracting circumstances, 

 events, activities and enterprises. It can not 

 be denied that the effect of this is to lower the 

 efficiency of the student, to weaken his mental 

 resolve for high accomplishment and to render 

 impotent much of the effort that has been ex- 

 pended by the instructor. It has repeatedly 

 been emphasized that extra-curricular activi- 



