Septembeb 13, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



333 



this total annual increment. Without chemistry 

 no such dreams could have been realized. Chem- 

 istry has made possible the transportation systems 

 ■which span the leading countries of the world. 

 It has made it possible to turn to man's service 

 the wealth of the mineral world. By analysis of 

 plants and soils, the waste materials of the world 

 have been brought to the growing of crops. In- 

 deed, every great industry, whether it be farming, 

 manufacturing, transportation or mining, would 

 almost immediately relapse to barbarism if the 

 secrets of the chemist and physicist, the geologist 

 and mineralogist could be gathered up and cast 

 into the sea. 



The work of science which probably needs most 

 development in the present day, however, is not 

 so much the application of knowledge already 

 acquired to the increase of wealth as the promo- 

 tion of research in fields whereby the enormous 

 wastes may be checked and the utilized resources 

 of the world immediately around us be won for 

 man's uses. Fundamental research is by far our 

 greatest need. Common clay is full of a com- 

 modity which, if it could only be extracted eco- 

 nomically, would probably solve for centuries the 

 question of a metal supply for a large part of the 

 needs of mankind. 



It was this thought that led an American jour- 

 nal to say that the accidental killing of Professor 

 Curie, the discoverer of radium, in the streets of 

 Paris last April, was a greater loss to the world 

 than the earthquake in San Francisco, where more 

 than a thousand people lost their lives, a quarter 

 of a million persons were rendered homeless by 

 conflagration and property losses estimated at 

 $500,000,000 occurred. If that be true, it is 

 neither numbers nor wealth, but scientific talent 

 that gives the power of mastery to nations because 

 of its capacity to unlock the secrets of nature, in 

 which are hid the sources of material welfare. 



These are words whieli must bring much 

 of both comfort and encouragement to 

 those who are just entering upon their life 

 work, as well as to those who have had 

 to work and answer the hard questions 

 offered by the industries. Knowledge is a 

 good financial asset, but it must be exact 

 and accurate knowledge. The hard ques- 

 tions submitted to the educated technologist 

 must be answered promptly but accurately. 



And many, if not most, of the questions 

 now pressing for answer are as much 

 chemical as mechanical. For instance, who 

 shall answer the question as to the cause 

 of, and remedy for, the broken rail 1 Shall 

 it be the engineer or the chemist? Shall 

 the answer be found in the intense speed 

 and the overload of trains, or in the ex- 

 cess of carbon necessary to provide resist- 

 ance to wear rail surface, or made neces- 

 sary by an overweening desire to increase 

 tonnage at expense of quality? or shall it 

 be found in the nitrogen introduced in the 

 steel and now found like phosphorus, to 

 have a profound influence upon the phys- 

 ical property of the product? The world, 

 and particularly the United States, is look- 

 ing anxiously for the correct answer to this 

 question. Will Troy and her men rise to 

 the situation and now, as in the decade '65 

 to '75, bring forth a new Bessemer process 

 to supply the new demand? There are 

 those here present, no doubt, who will take 

 inspiration from this question and do their 

 share to supply this instant demand and 

 do it thoroughly. It is for this that the 

 Rensselaer School was founded, and the 

 Walker laboratory generously provided. 

 And failure and disappointment are surely 

 words which do not belong in the local 

 vocabulary. 



The value of the study of chemistry in 

 the training of educated technical men 

 has been realized since the time of Van 

 Rensselaer as well as before. In his ad- 

 dress on "The Functions of Technical Edu- 

 cation" the late Professor Thurston said: 

 "When the pupil is to go directly into busi- 

 ness and his precise line of work is not 

 settled, or when it is evident that he is of 

 that large class in this country liable to 

 pass from one vocation to another, the 

 technical studies for the curriculum should 

 be in general, mathematics and the science 

 of physics and particularly of chemistry." 



