NOTEMBEK 22, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



701 



and in this same subject we still have Mor- 

 ley and also have "W. A. Noyes, now of 

 Illinois; in organic chemistry we have Nef 

 of Chicago, with great new ideas power- 

 fully influencing work abroad as well as 

 here, Remsen and his students continuing 

 the work of former years, and again, 

 Noyes; in physical chemistry we have A. 

 A. Noyes in Boston, Franklin at Leland 

 Stanford, Bancroft, Hulett, our enthusi- 

 astic friend Kahlenberg at Wisconsin 

 fighting nobly for a lost cause ; in inorganic 

 chemistry, Edgar F. Smith, Morse and 

 again Remsen. There are about as many 

 names again which could be mentioned 

 and then our list of really prominent 

 research men in chemistry at American 

 universities would be exhausted— I am 

 not including technical research men. 

 With the older men, there are barely 

 twenty men in all, directing strictly orig- 

 inal research work in our American uni- 

 versities, work involving new ideas as well 

 ^ the preparation of new compounds and 

 salts. The supply is far too small to meet 

 the demand, and in view of the importance 

 of the subject, this condition, unless im- 

 proved, presents a distinct menace to our 

 educational and economic development. A 

 second significant fact is that with the ex- 

 ception of two or three men working under 

 particularly favorable special conditions, 

 the productiveness of our research men is 

 by no means commensurate with the output 

 of an equal number of men in Germany. 

 An impartial scrutiny of the situation 

 shows unmistakably serious defects in our 

 American conditions which must be re- 

 moved if chemical research is to flourish 

 here as abroad and if able men are to be 

 attracted in sufficient numbers to a life de- 

 voted to research and research instruction. 

 Contrasting the conditions in German 

 universities with ours, we find the American 

 professor, as a rule, overburdened with an 



excessive amount of routine work, consist- 

 ing of lecturing, laboratory instruction and 

 administrative duties. Some teaching must 

 be considered as essential for the welfare of 

 the investigator: in presenting his subject 

 before a critical student body, he is held to 

 an iron logic, he must ever go to the very 

 foundations of our science and, detecting a 

 weak point here, a missing link, a circle 

 proof, a traditional rut there, his mind con- 

 tinually receives ideas for critical work on 

 the very essence of chemistry. But every 

 profound investigation requires a degree 

 of abstraction and absorption as great as 

 that demanded for creative art. And for 

 such work the best powers- of the brain are 

 obviously needed: but, after lecturing two 

 hours or giving laboratory instruction for 

 half a day and attending to innumerable 

 petty administrative details, that best 

 power is gone for the days, and each year is 

 made up of just such days or worse in 

 most of our American universities; the 

 mental alertness, the critical and creative 

 faculties, are wasted on routine work, which 

 to a large extent could be done as well or 

 better by a different type of man. Now, 

 in Germany, as I knew it, the great investi- 

 gators lectured at most once a day, their 

 laboratory instruction was limited to re- 

 search students, the instruction of all the 

 other students in the laboratory being left 

 wholly in the hands of other men, able men 

 of rank and training, not inexperienced as- 

 sistants. Then, only a little over half the 

 year was given to academic work, almost 

 half the year being left, not for recrea- 

 tion—a few weeks sufficed for that— but 

 for that intense, absolutely undisturbed 

 work required for the creating mind. 



A second important factor in the pro- 

 ductiveness of our American chemists as 

 compared with those abroad is found in the 

 problem of research assistants ; the creative 

 imagination of the investigator in ehem- 



