April 8, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



563 



fuel, in recoveries from waste products or 

 by producing better material. 



Before deciding on the best methods of 

 training our technical chemists, we must 

 see that they are sufficiently educated in 

 the proper lines to enable them readily to 

 become technical chemists of great value. 

 During my long experience in connection 

 with chemical manufacturing and metal- 

 lurgical work I have been forced to the full 

 realization that the majority of chemists 

 who are employed as analysts, technical 

 chemists and as works or department man- 

 agers, have perfected themselves in chem- 

 istry alone and seem to have neglected the 

 importance of physics and engineering. If 

 one wishes to achieve the greatest success 

 in such work he should not undertake the 

 problem at all unless he has made up his 

 mind to perfect his mathematics and be- 

 come thoroughly familiar with physics as 

 well as mechanical engineering. 



It seems a great mistake that the term 

 technical chemist has been used in connec- 

 tion with chemists who are obliged to apply 

 chemistry in manufacturing processes. It 

 would have been better had they been 

 called chemical engineers, for this might 

 have induced the study of chemical en- 

 gineering in the colleges many years ago. 

 I feel certain that, had this been done, our 

 industrial situation would have been much 

 further advanced than at present, and the 

 standing of practical chemists would have 

 been higher and their value more highly 

 esteemed than is the case. We dp not speak 

 of a metallurgist as a technical metallur- 

 gist, a miner, as a technical miner, or an 

 electrician as a technical electrician. The 

 metallurgist is, properly speaking, a metal- 

 lurgical engineer, the miner a mining en- 

 gineer and an electrician who applies elec- 

 tricity, an electrical engineer. In all of 

 these positions it is impossible to succeed 

 without a full Imowledge of. mechanical 

 engineering. The same is true in the ap- 



plication of chemistry. It would appear 

 that when young men aspired to become 

 chemists they looked upon the great chem- 

 ists as supreme beings. They also consid- 

 ered mechanical engineering, with its ma- 

 chinery, machine shop, foundry, etc., as 

 beneath the dignity of the chemist; they 

 left college knowing nothing of mechanical 

 engineering, and of course were totally un- 

 fit to take positions as works managers or 

 ■wherever it became necessary to apply 

 chemistry in a large way. I have known 

 cases where young men, who were exceed- 

 ingly clever as chemists, but totally ig- 

 norant of engineering and as unpractical 

 as one could imagine, were placed at once 

 in positions of practical responsibility in 

 small chemical works. No more cruel act 

 could possibly be done to the chemist. The 

 business managers were not practical and 

 had studied neither engineering nor chem- 

 istry. Of course many of the chemists 

 who were placed in such positions proved 

 utter failures, and for this reason many of 

 the practical business men twenty-five years 

 ago doubted the value of chemists in con- 

 nection with manufacturing. Had these 

 young chemists been chemical engineers 

 and had the business managers received a 

 moderate education in mechanical engi- 

 neering and chemistry, the combination 

 would have resulted in a marked success 

 instead of failure. 



When we notice the enormous field in 

 manufacturing in this country one can not 

 help feeling that the study of mechanical 

 engineering should be very much more gen- 

 eral than at present. I have known chem- 

 ists who had not studied engineering, who, 

 when placed on practical work, realized 

 their deficiencies and took a course in me- 

 chanical engineering at night schools in 

 order to enable them to properly apply 

 their chemical knowledge. After men 

 have gone through a regular course in 

 chemical engineering they should be 



