782 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. a85. 



were visited in the course of two hours— 

 another illustration of the optimism of col- 

 lege catalogues. 



ACQUAINTANCE WITH CURRENT CHEMICAL 

 THOUGHT. 



The necessity of familiarizing students 

 with new facts at first hand is self-evident, 

 and realized by all conscientious teachers. 

 The main difficulty would appear to be the 

 accomplishment of the task. I know of 

 only one method— to weary not of well-do- 

 ing, and to keep everlastingly at it. Fre- 

 quent meetings of students and instructors 

 on an informal basis, be it a seminar or a 

 'chemical society,' where new facts are 

 discussed without reference to their classifi- 

 cation, comprehensive lectures on recent 

 progress, essays by the students themselves, 

 the current numbers of journals laid out 

 in a cozy reading room in the laboratory 

 (the librarian must be overcome by fair 

 means or foul)— all of these methods per- 

 sisted in for two or three years will solve 

 many a 'complex unknown' cerebral ob- 

 struction. Ad astra per aspera. 



WHERE TO FIND THE TIME. 



The ambitious program I have outlined 

 now calls for the consideration of a purely 

 practical problem: How can we find the 

 time to accomplish all this? Even as 

 our courses stand, there is barely time 

 within the four years at college to complete 

 the minimum of chemical work; where is 

 there room for all the extra lectures and 

 laboratory exercises that a really thorough 

 technical preparation would seem to call 

 for? I am afraid that my suggestions will 

 contain many heresies. 



For one thing, our college aiithorities 

 must be made to realize that the main es- 

 sential of training in technical chemistry 

 is a knowledge of chemistry. This some- 

 what axiomatic doctrine is by no means 

 universally accepted. Thus, the chemical 

 engineers in two prominent institutions 



(Columbia and Pennsylvania) take con- 

 siderably less chemistry than other students 

 in chemical branches. Now while other 

 topics are certainly necessary and valuable 

 assets for chemical engineers, there must 

 be a limit somewhere. The main problems 

 before even the chemical engineer are 

 chemical; those of the teacher and analyst 

 almost wholly so. I will not presume to 

 outline just how much or how little of these 

 extraneous courses should be incorporated 

 in the curriculum for technical chemists; 

 but I should like to venture upon the prin- 

 ciples which may fitly guide those more 

 directly concerned with the task. I should 

 say, then, that the question should be con- 

 sidered upon its own merits; no inherited 

 prejudices, no educational theories, should 

 stand in the way of the prime fact that in 

 studying chemistry a knowledge of chem- 

 istry comes first. The problem of general 

 education and culture must not be allowed 

 to interfere in any way; where cultural 

 education is also sought, the time needed 

 for it must be debited to its own account, 

 and not written off the technical calen- 

 dar. The two problems are absolutely 

 distinct, and have no business with each 

 other. This must be insisted upon, since col- 

 lege faculties are only too prone to ignore 

 it altogether. Better for a college not to 

 give any technical courses at all, than to 

 play at make-believe and ruin the careers 

 of its graduates. If four years at college 

 are not enough for both general and tech- 

 nical education, take six, eight or ten— but 

 take enough to do the work thoroughly. I 

 would say also that the non-chemical sub- 

 jects should be reduced to the lowest pos- 

 sible figures, and chemistry be given the 

 benefit of every doubt. "Wherever feasible, 

 these subjects should be a part of the gen- 

 eral education, and thus serve both ends;; 

 such would be, e. g., German and French, 

 physics, first-year chemistry, mathematics, 

 etc. The cardinal rule should always be 



