November 22, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



699 



cient head and the splendid promise for its 

 immediate future. All here present will, 

 I am sure, heartily join me in wishing for 

 the university and for its department of 

 chemistry no diminution of the splendid 

 prosperity which has attended the efforts 

 of its excellent administration in the recent 

 past. 



William McMubtrie 



CHEMICAL RESEARCH IN AMERICAN 

 UNIVERSITIES 



Gathered here to-day to celebrate the 

 installation of one of our prominent Ameri- 

 can investigators as director of chemistry 

 in the University of Illinois, we should not 

 do justice to the occasion if our thoughts 

 did not turn to the serious meaning of this 

 event for the future of chemical research 

 in our universities. I have thought to de- 

 vote the few miniites, during which I shall 

 have the pleasure of addressing you, most 

 usefully to the consideration of some con- 

 ditions affecting the future of chemical re- 

 search in our American universities. 



Before this audience I need make no 

 lengthy plea of justification for the demand 

 for research work in chemistry in our uni- 

 versities, either on the ground of economic 

 considerations or from the standpoint of 

 our highest ideals, as expressed in the 

 struggle of the human race for enlight- 

 enment on itself. As Professor Theodore 

 W. Richards recently said in his inaugural 

 lecture at the University of Berlin : 



All the manifold experiences of the human mind 

 are intimately connected with the presence of that 

 which we call material, enlivened by that which 

 we call energy; and the ultimate deciphering of 

 the great mystery of life will depend just as much 

 on the understanding of these as upon the study 

 of the mind itself. Thus modern chemistry should 

 be regarded not only as bringing to medicine and 

 the useful arts its obvious and multifarious con- 

 tributions, but as occupying also an essentially 

 important place in the realm of intellectual 

 speculation. 



After Dr. McMurtrie's address it is un- 

 necessary to say much about chemistry in 

 the field of economics. It is a trite fact 

 now that the industrial and commercial 

 supremacy of Great Britain is threatened 

 most dangerously by the wonderful growth 

 of manufacturing in Germany. English- 

 men, noting this in the face of the fact 

 that they themselves are rather favored in 

 the matter of natural resources and 

 wealth, are attributing the great strength 

 of their competitors almost entirely to their 

 splendidly trained army of chemists. A 

 significant fact is that this onward march 

 of the German industries is characterized 

 by much of the same fearlessness and su- 

 preme confidence of victory as was its 

 march on the unprepared armies of France 

 forty years ago ; and for much the same 

 reason — again, it is splendidly organized — 

 organized in the matter of trained scien- 

 tists, chiefly chemists; its industrial ad- 

 versary is not— as yet. Chemistry, in some 

 form or other, enters into the production 

 and manufacture of almost all the great 

 articles of commerce — from the raising of 

 wheat and corn on soils scientifically 

 analyzed and fertilized, to the making of 

 steel and all iron materials, from the prepa- 

 ration of brilliant dyes to that of common 

 leather, from the drugs of our sick days to 

 the food products of our daily life — all can 

 be developed best imder the direction or 

 with the help of able chemists, and, what is 

 equally important, all, without exception, 

 are capable of vast improvement under the 

 seeing eyes of the chemist, trained to ob- 

 serve closely, to reason accurately, to 

 think originally, to experiment rigorously — 

 trained, in a word, to do research work. 

 German universities^ and polytechnic 

 schools are turning out such chemists, 

 doctors of philosophy, by the hundred — 

 men trained to investigation, so that they 

 can improve and develop new ways for 



