Apkil 26, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



647 



title investigation, a broad foundation may 

 be demanded as a prerequisite. Thus will 

 the dignity and usefulness of the profes- 

 sional schools be increased and thus will 

 the university fulfil its trust by giving to 

 the service of the state sons strong to with- 

 stand the wayward blasts of popular 

 superstitions, keen to search out and expose 

 their fallacies, and strenuous in laying 

 secure foundations for advancement in 

 literature, science and the arts and in 

 fostering their development and applica- 

 tion. 



J. Platfaib McMuebich 

 Univeesitt of Michigan 



THE CHEMIST AND THE COMMUNITY^ 

 On April 18 of this year there occurred 

 at San Francisco a vast catastrophe as the 

 result of which more than 1,000 people 

 are said to have lost their lives while 250,- 

 000 were rendered homeless in the midst of 

 a conflagration involving an area of six 

 square miles and a property loss of at least 

 $300,000,000. On April 19 there was run 

 over and killed in the streets of Paris a 

 simple, unassuming, absent-minded man. 

 The Boston Herald in an editorial comment 

 upon the two events said that it might well 

 be questioned whether of the two the acci- 

 dent in Paris did not in its broad relation 

 to the welfare of mankind constitute the 

 greater calamity. This was an amazing 

 thing to say of the death of any man, even 

 of one so preeminent in attainment as Pro- 

 fessor Curie. Let us consider why it was 

 said and upon what basis it may, if at all, 

 be justified. It was said in tacit recogni- 

 tion of the fact that the quality of intel- 

 lectual leadership is one of the rarest and 

 most precious possessions of our race and 

 that the world can better afford to lose a 

 city or a province than one of its great 

 investigators, philosophers or teachers. 



' Read at the general meeting of the American 

 Chemical Society, on December 27, 1906, at Co- 

 lumbia University. 



One pregnant thought, one flash of insight 

 from a master mind, has often done more 

 for the advancement of mankind than all 

 the toil which built the pyramids. The 

 result of the researches of Professor and 

 Madam Curie has been as you all well know 

 to change our whole conception of the 

 material universe and to bring within the 

 reach of our perception stupendous natural 

 forces the existence of which had not even 

 been suspected. The effect has been even 

 more far-reaching for with the farther 

 vision has come new views of what life is 

 and of our relations to this greater uni- 

 verse, such views for instance as those put 

 forth by Sir Oliver Lodge in his recent 

 ' Life and Matter.' 



In the accounts of the war between 

 Japan and Russia frequent reference was 

 made to the parties of chemists who far 

 ahead of the main army were testing water 

 supplies and posting notices which warned 

 the oncoming troops where danger from 

 polluted water must be avoided. It seems 

 to me that this little vanguard well typifies 

 what the chemist should stand for and 

 where he should be found in his relations 

 to the community. He is or should be 

 essentially a pioneer rushing forward and 

 serving the community in the best sense in 

 serving science. 



It has doubtless occurred to some of you 

 that chemists as a professional class do not 

 have that direct and strong hold on the 

 regard of the community which has been 

 established and is well maintained by phy- 

 sicians, lawyers and ministers. The rea- 

 sons for this are not far to seek. The work 

 of the chemist deals with things and in 

 carrying on this work he is rarely or never 

 brought into such direct and vital personal 

 relations with individual members of the 

 community as the family doctor who pre- 

 sides at birth, the lawyer who conducts 

 affairs, or the minister to whom one turns 

 in times of stress and trouble. Moreover, 



