332 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 663 



The necessity Van Eensselaer saw has been 

 realized, and his munificence has made just 

 such combinations possible. The imagina- 

 tions of Holley and Roebling and Colling- 

 wood and Boiler and Hodge have made 

 possible the wonderful bridges spanning 

 the great rivers of the world, the network 

 of railroads stretched across the continent, 

 which insures transportation and com- 

 merce, but the products which afford reali- 

 zation of these imaginations must have the 

 care and control of the chemist from the 

 earth, from which the raw material sprung, 

 to the wires and bars which constitute the 

 great structures which excite wonder and 

 admiration. 



But the founder of the institute saw more 

 in the arts of life. He saw necessity for 

 provision for the immediate wants of man- 

 kind, the food and raiment, the removal 

 and utilization of wastes, and if the for- 

 mer may seem to have been neglected by 

 the institute, the latter surely have not. 

 Here is another measure of the civilization 

 of a nation, the utilization of its wastes. 

 Nowhere in the world, perhaps, has this 

 had more intelligent and effective study 

 than in the department of chemistry of 

 the institute. The purity and abundance 

 of the domestic water supply and the 

 healthful and economic disposal of human 

 wastes have in all ages of the world been 

 of the highest public importance. The 

 function of the municipal engineer has been 

 called into activity, and the world is be- 

 ginning to reap the fruits of its practical 

 application. It is not always true that 

 ' ' fools rush in where angels fear to tread, ' ' 

 but rather that wisdom of knowledge 

 courageously leads in untried paths where 

 ignorance blindly follows. The known 

 leads to the unknown. The present builds 

 upon the experience of the past. It is thus 

 that knowledge brings progress, and study, 



however obscure, brings help and comfort 

 to mankind. 



The value of the special knowledge of 

 natural forces and their laws, which Van 

 Rensselaer foresaw, is coming to be more 

 and more appreciated in the commercial 

 world. During the present year the most 

 important representative of the financial 

 interests, The Wall Street Journal, said, 

 editorially, under the caption "Science as 

 a Financial Asset," inspired doubtless by 

 the address lately delivered by Dr. A. D. 

 Little, of Boston, before the American 

 Chemical Society in annual meeting : 



Science as a source of strength in promoting 

 private wealth and public welfare is the one thing 

 that draws the line of demarkation between an- 

 cient and modern times. That was a belated 

 medieval, not a modern, outburst of popular wrath 

 against which Lavoisier's friends appealed for 

 his life on the ground of his scientific service 

 to the French state. The powers then in control 

 replied that " the republic had no use for chem- 

 ists." Far more like modernity is the declaration 

 of a German chemist that " scientific research is 

 the greatest financial asset of the fatherland." 

 Germany's economic progress proves that he was 

 at least much nearer right. The sciences in gen- 

 eral have been among the greatest emancipating 

 forces, because they have helped to overcome man's 

 fear of nature, which kept him from utilizing the 

 forces of the world about him, and because they 

 disclosed elements of the highest value to the 

 world in their most practical forms: It has been 

 well said " that if we were to take away what the 

 chemists have contributed, the whole structure of 

 modern society would break down at once. Every 

 commercial transaction in the civilized world is 

 based on the chemist's certificate as to the fineness 

 of gold, which forms our ultimate measure of 

 values. Faith may remove mountains, but mod- 

 ern society relies on dynamite. Without explo- 

 sives our great engineering works must cease and 

 the Panama Canal, no less than modem warfare, 

 become impossible." 



The late Abraham S. Hewitt estimated that the 

 Bessemer process of manufacturing steel added 

 directly and indirectly two thousand million dol- 

 lars a year to the world's wealth. Bessemer him- 

 self retained only about ten million dollars out of 



