572 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 484. 



last year, and, of course, it is extremely 

 difficult to give each student much personal 

 attention. I think that one great difficulty 

 is that somehow or other we have rather 

 drifted into the condition that the student 

 expects the professor to tell him every- 

 thing that he has to do. I worked in 

 Eose's laboratory for a year, making min- 

 eral analyses. He never told me how to 

 make an analysis. He handed me a piece 

 of mineral, samarskite, for example, and 

 told me to find it out myself. I read every- 

 thing I could find that had ever been writ- 

 ten on the subject. I found out the best 

 methods known for analysis. That was 

 the system of those days. Now, the stu- 

 dents expect us to stand up in the lecture 

 room and tell them every step in the pro- 

 cess of making an analysis. They must 

 be told to weigh a gram and a half of this, 

 and add this and that to it, so many cubic 

 centimeters of this and so many of that, 

 and they must do this, that and the other 

 thing ; and unless you tell the student every 

 step of that kind, he can not make the 

 analysis. 



I quite agree with everything that has 

 been said upon the subject of adding to 

 the instruction of the chemist a sufficient 

 amount of engineering to enable him to 

 rise to the dignity of superintendent or 

 manager of large works, but I do not think 

 that can be done in a four years' course. 

 If we train our men in analytical chemistry, 

 in general chemistry, and in such an 

 amount of industrial chemistry as can be 

 taught in the lecture room, and such an 

 amount of laboratory practice as can be 

 carried on in university laboratories, and 

 at the same time give them their thermo- 

 dynamics and physics, and a certain 

 amount of mineralogy, I think that is the 

 best we can do. 



Professor A. A. Notes. 



In the first place I would say, I believe 



that a distinct demand by manufacturers 

 for men trained in both chemistry and 

 chemical engineering will make it much 

 easier to induce students to take the extra 

 fifth year that is necessary in order to do 

 anything like justice to these two subjects. 

 I believe, too, that institutions can do a 

 great deal in this direction by laying out 

 a definite course of fifth-year work, leading 

 to some higher degree ; for when a definite 

 course is oiifered there are more likely to 

 be applicants for it than if it is only stated 

 in a general way that there is an oppor- 

 tunity for advanced work. 



I should also like to ask the question, 

 whether manufacturers prefer a chemical 

 engineer or an engineering chemist — that 

 is to say, a man whose education is mainly 

 upon the mechanical engineering side, Avith 

 some knowledge of chemistry included, or 

 a man whose main training is in chemistry, 

 this being supplemented only by such an 

 amount of mechanical engineering as can 

 be worked in without serious detriment to 

 his chemical knowledge 1 I think it should 

 be borne in mind in answering this ques- 

 tion that, if the chemical engineer is pre- 

 ferred, it would certainly mean a sacrifice 

 of the power of attacking new problems 

 on the part of our industrial chemists. The 

 engineer is trained to put in application 

 existing methods; and it seems to me that 

 what is wanted of the factory chemist in 

 this country is rather the power of solving 

 new problems and of making improvements 

 in processes— a power to be acquired far 

 more by a good chemical training, which 

 should include a large proportion of re- 

 search and other work requiring independ- 

 ent thinking, than by an engineering train- 

 ing. 



In order to introduce any considerable 

 amount of mechanical engineering in the 

 chemical courses it is necessary to eliminate 

 something that we have there now ; and the 

 question is a very pertinent one, Wliat kind 



