730 
cultural chemical research or in the vast 
amount of research and experimental work 
conducted in these lines. 
Another way in which our profession has 
influenced higher education in this country 
is found in the large number of chemists 
who have been called to preside over our 
higher institutions of learning. Of the 
leading institutions in this country, Har- 
vard University, Lehigh University, the 
University of North Carolina, the Univer- 
sity of Tennessee and Purdue University 
are presided over by professional chemists, 
or rather, I should say, by those who before 
elevation to the presidential rank were 
professional chemists. JI doubt if any other 
branch of science can show so many college 
and university presidents as our own. It 
is certainly not a mere accident that in the 
breaking away from the old scholastic 
habit of placing ministers of the gospel over 
institutions of learning, chemistry has re- 
eeived so marked a favor. In fact, the 
pursuits of chemical science, it seems to 
me, tend more than other scientific occu- 
pations to broaden the mind and to bring 
it in contact with all the varied industries 
and forces of active life. It is true that 
other branches of science have their eco- 
nomic aspects, and we do not by any 
means desire to minimize that important 
relation, but they do not come so generally 
into contact with human affairs. While 
they appeal in the nature of their services 
more to the public imagination, when it 
comes to real practice they do not have 
that influence which our own science pos- 
sesses. 
Iam far from saying that the pursuit of 
chemical studies tends, in any peculiar 
way, to develop administrative ability, and 
hence it cannot be in this collateral way 
that so many of our brethren have reached 
these higher places of administrative effort. 
While we do not claim that chemical 
science holds in any way the same dominant 
SCIENCE. 
(N.S. Von. XIII. No. 332. 
position in didactics that it does in agricul- 
ture, we do find, even in the smaller insti- 
tutions of higher learning, that, as a rule, 
chemical science is taught more thoroughly 
and more effectively than other branches. 
The consideration of these facts, if promi- 
nently brought before the attention of the 
public, would certainly do much to increase 
the estimation in which our profession is 
_ held. 
The above only illustrates in one indus- 
try the dominant influence of chemical 
research, and in so far as science comes 
into direct contact with the industries of 
the world it is evident that in almost every 
one chemistry occupies the predominant 
position. This well-recognized fact is a 
firm basis for the substantial claims of the 
dignity of our profession. 
There is one point, however, in which it 
seems to me we are much at fault, and that 
is in the fact that the chemists of this coun- 
try seem to have taken but little interest in 
the science of civics. We are too prone to 
regard politics as a profession beneath the 
dignity of a scientific man, and yet we must 
admit that the organization of the body 
politic for the public good is the highest 
work to which a man can devote himself. 
In other words, real politics is the most 
useful and most honorable of professions. 
The trouble here in this country is that 
politics becomes too much of a profession. 
In other words, it becomes a source of 
revenue or of sole revenue. How much 
better it would be if men who have reached 
success and competence in other profes- 
sions, without abandoning these in their 
maturer years, would devote a portion of 
their time to the public good. In Europe 
this is commonly the case and we are all 
familiar with the names of eminent scien- 
tific men who have become celebrated also 
as leaders in political life. In Germany, 
we recall the name of Virchow, who, for 
more than thirty years, has been a member 
