November 28, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



845 



phenomena with which we are surxounded, 

 it seems to me wiser to devote the period 

 of infancy and childhood and early youth 

 largelj' to learning English, Greek, Latin 

 and German. The youth who, at sixteen, 

 finds himself ready for college with a prac- 

 tical knowledge of the four languages I 

 have mentioned, has laid one of the corner- 

 stones of a liberal education. There is no 

 other period at which languages can be so 

 easily acquired as that period in which 

 nature teaches languages herself, and a 

 year of Latin at nine or ten is worth two 

 years at twenty or thirty. 



I would like, therefore, to see the science 

 training of our, high schools confined to 

 the explanation of common phenomena, 

 and not include any expensive, time-con- 

 suming and exclusive laboratory practices. 

 This may all seem heresy, coming from a 

 scientific man, but I believe it is good gos- 

 pel, nevertheless. I have often been mor- 

 tified at the English composition of college 

 and even university graduates. Men who 

 have attained eminence in particular 

 branches of study often seem incapable of 

 expressing their thoughts in any proper 

 way. Their English is inexact, clumsy 

 and inconsequent. Clear expression seems 

 to me to be the legitimate outcome of clear 

 thinking, and the neglect of those early 

 studies which enable one to express himself 

 clearly and forcibly is a fault which can 

 only be remedied by long years of morti- 

 fication and hard labor. 



Chemistry, in the second place, plays an 

 important role as a help in the study 

 of other sciences. Since it enters as an 

 element into so many other sciences, 

 except that part of physics already men- 

 tioned, it seems to me that for scientific 

 purposes, or, in other words, for instruction 

 in scientific specialties, chemistry should 

 be practically the first science studied. I 

 would point out only a few instances in 

 which chemistry becomes an important 



adjunct in other branches of scientific in- 

 vestigation. In geology it teaches the com- 

 position of rocks, and this often throws 

 important light upon their origin. The 

 presence of quantities of phosphoric acid 

 in a rock shows that it must have been 

 derived, or probably was derived, from 

 organic life. If ioclin and bromin be 

 found in mineral deposits, it is an indica- 

 tion that they were of marine organic 

 origin. The geologist, of course, must 

 know whether his rocks are composed of 

 silicates, carbonates or sand, for these three 

 classes of chemical compounds make up 

 the great bulk of the rock deposits of the 

 earth's crust. To be sure, it does not re- 

 quire a great deal of chemistry to deter- 

 mine this, but it does require chemical 

 knowledge, and thus a knowledge of chem- 

 istry must be one of the elements in the 

 education of a geologist. 



In the case of mineralogy, the impor- 

 tance of chemistry as a preliminary study 

 is more pronounced. Morphology is, of 

 course, an important aid to the mineralo- 

 gist in determining species, but the final 

 test is always composition. The mineralo- 

 gist, therefore, must be not only a chemist, 

 but a chemist of skill and' experience, or 

 else he is ignorant of an important part 

 of his profession. 



In metallurgy we find chemistry again 

 playing a most important role. Wliile the 

 working of metals, from an artistic point 

 of view, is entirely independent of a knowl- 

 edge of their composition, the production 

 of metals from their ores is a chemical 

 process pure and simple. The metallur- 

 gist is first of all a producer of metals, 

 Irat when he works them into given forms 

 he becomes an artist. Chemistry, in the 

 guise of metallurgy, was the foundation 

 of the first of the arts, for it is evident 

 that if man had never emerged from the 

 Stone Age he never could have progressed 



