736 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 593. 



with instruction or executive duties that 

 they can not carry on original work in 

 their own specialties. Nor are they sup- 

 plied with adequate library or laboratory 

 facilities for advanced students. 



11. (a) Do you offer technical courses 

 in chemistry? 



(b) If so, ivhich do you, emphasize? 



There are more southern colleges offering 

 technical work than I had anticipated. 

 Twenty-four of the list give technical 

 courses in some form or other. Usually 

 the special kind of technical work is con- 

 trolled by local demands and natural sup- 

 plies. For example, all of the colleges re- 

 ceiving the Morrill fund make a specialty 

 of fertilizer, soil and food control; the 

 Louisiana colleges offer courses in sugar 

 chemistry; the Alabama colleges, iron and 

 coal analysis; and so forth. 



I consider this both pedagogical and 

 profitable. While the study of ehemisiry 

 should be considered fundamental, and 

 should not be side-tracked for technical 

 work too soon in a student's chemical edu- 

 cation, even from an educational viewpoint 

 some technical application is helpful in 

 reinforcing previous theoretical training. 

 The same principle obtains in language 

 study. Literature emphasizes and strength- 

 ens the technique of grammar and rhetoric. 

 Then, too, technical training is materially 

 profitable. The ' reason why the familiar 

 national trade-mark, 'Made in Germany,' 

 is a valuable asset is because German 

 manufactories are worked and superin- 

 tended by graduates technically trained in 

 the great universities. It is possible that 

 the Germanophohia indulged in by our 

 British cousins is caused by commercial 

 rather than political jealousy. The two 

 antipodal economic practises account for 

 the apparent industrial decadence of Great 

 Britain compared with the ascendency of 

 Germany. Oxford and Cambridge— de- 



spite their admirable history of light and 

 leading— have had little share in the affairs 

 of the great industrial centers of Birming- 

 ham, Manchester and Sheffield. These in- 

 dustries have been developed by the ap- 

 prentice system. Under this system young 

 men become skilled in the manipulation of 

 old methods, but have no opportunity of 

 contact with the new. In one German 

 pharmaceutical plant alone, there are em- 

 ployed two hundred university graduates, 

 who by their superior skill and education 

 not only perfect old methods of prepara- 

 tions, but are earnestly devising new proc- 

 esses. Although Great Britain and 

 America manufacture more iron, and con- 

 sume more coal, Germany, a less favored 

 nation in these raw materials, converts the 

 by-products from our coke ovens and gas 

 plants into antipyretics and coal-tar colors, 

 and returns the finished products to us. 



President Remsen in his inaugural ad- 

 dress at Johns Hopkins said: "It is gen- 

 erally accepted that the reason why Ger- 

 many occupies such a high position in cer- 

 tain branches of industry, especially those 

 founded upon chemistry, is that the univer- 

 sities of Germany have fostered the work 

 of investigation more than those of any 

 other country. * * * In Germany the 

 chemical industries have grown to immense, 

 almost inconceivable, proportions. Mean- 

 while, the corresponding industries of 

 Great Britain have steadily declined." 



Once the American universities were rep- 

 licas of the British system, but now the 

 German university sets the standard. 



It is this shifting of method and manner 

 that affords us of to-day, in the matter of 

 the practical virtue of our courses in sci- 

 ence, an assured guarantee of commei'cial 

 and industrial progress. 



J. F. Sellers. 

 Mebceb Univebsity. 



