Apbil 15, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



565 



of college teaching, I might, from what has 

 been so persistently dinned into my ears, 

 have been led to believe that "team work" 

 originated in the minds of the college 

 youths who flock to Franklin Field or to 

 the Harvard Stadium. Sitting on the 

 bleachers with practical politicians and 

 presidents, I might be led to suppose that 

 "team work" was an invention of the pro- 

 fessional athlete. As a fact the idea of 

 "team work" is a very old one and mili- 

 tary in its essence and original application. 

 It is embodied in our national motto. It 

 is commemorated in the "Charge of the 

 Light Brigade." But this older practise, 

 while greatly promoting efficiency, de- 

 manded such unreasoning subordination 

 that the private soldier was properly looked 

 upon as but "food for powder," and when 

 this system was introduced into the factory 

 the operator became but "a cog in the 

 machine. ' ' 



The modification in this plan of "team 

 work" which has been developed to such 

 advantage in the industrial plants of this 

 country has come through a recognition of 

 the great value of individuality and the 

 necessity for its preservation and develop- 

 ment, and it has been demonstrated that 

 the higher the intelligence of the individ- 

 uals who merge their entities with that of 

 their fellows in a common purpose, and the 

 more complete their comprehension of the 

 means used and the end sought, the more 

 successful is the result whether gauged by 

 the quality, or the quantity, or the cost of 

 the output. I am happy to say that the 

 chemist has destroyed the older military 

 idea, even in the army, for by his invention 

 of high-powered smokeless powder he has 

 compelled armies to fight in open order so 

 that each individual must exercise his own 

 powers in attack and defense, and be 

 trained to take the initiative in case of 

 necessity. 



Naturally the application of labor-saving 

 machinery and of "team work" is most 

 readily made and yields most efficient re- 

 sults in the production, transportation and 

 handling of the raw materials of our larger 

 industries, and it is in these that we find 

 the smaller proportionate increase in the 

 cost of materials. 



American industries, in which the chem- 

 ical industries are included, have signalized 

 themselves by the introduction of stand- 

 ards, by the introduction of interchange- 

 able parts into mechanisms, by the wide 

 application of labor-saving machinery and 

 by the use of "team work." Yet notwith- 

 standing the vast resources of this country, 

 their ease of access, and the cheapening, 

 by methods such as described, of many of 

 costs of production, the cost of "living," 

 not only here but throughout the civilized 

 world, has steadily increased, and I at- 

 tribute this largely to the work of the 

 chemist. 



At St. Louis, in 1904, I said: 



Technical chemistry, then, invades the domains 

 of economics, of politics and of diplomacy. A 

 striking example of its effects in economics and 

 politics is found in the settlement of the silver 

 question. Gold is a most widely diffused metal. 

 It has, for instance, been shown by assayers at 

 the U. S. Mint at Philadelphia that if the gold 

 in the clay of the bricks of which the buildings 

 of the Quaker City are built could be brought to 

 the surface, the fronts would all be gilded. In 

 the past our processes for the isolation of this 

 metal have been so costly that only the richer 

 ores would bear treatment. Large bodies of low- 

 grade ores which have been discovered and moun- 

 tains of tailings carrying values were looked upon 

 as worthless, while enormous quantities of copper, 

 lead and other metals containing gold were sent 

 into the market to be devoted to common uses, 

 because the cost of separation was greater than 

 the value of the separated products. Eight years 

 ago, when the " silver question " was made the 

 national issue, while the orators were declaiming 

 from the stump, the chemists were quietly work- 

 ing at the problem in their laboratories and fac- 

 tories. Manhg's process for bessemerizing copper 



