648 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXV. No. 643 



every one knows by personal contact and 

 experience something of the field and 

 manner of work of the members of these 

 professions, whereas comparatively few in 

 the community at large have any definite 

 or adequate notion of the scope and 

 methods and possibilities for usefulness of 

 the scienea of chemistry. This is even true 

 of an amazing number of our manufac- 

 turere and this ignorance constitutes a very 

 serious menace to the continuance of our 

 prosperity. To-day as never before knowl- 

 edge is power and science is only knowl- 

 edge at its best. Our industrial achieve- 

 ments, impressive though they are, cannot 

 be properly measured without some stand- 

 ard of comparison, and such a standard we 

 have in Germany. The question for our 

 manufacturers to answer is not what have 

 they done, but what would Germany have 

 done with our vast resources at her com- 

 mand. There is no escaping from the an- 

 swer that by that measure we have failed 

 and are repeating failure. Doctor Pritch- 

 ett in a recent article has said ' ' Perhaps at 

 our present stage of development in such 

 matters no other preliminary work needs 

 more to be done than some work of popular 

 education relative to what research is," 

 that research which a famous German 

 chemist quoted in the same paper declares 

 to be ' the greatest financial asset of the 

 fatherland.' The present and pressing 

 duty of the chemist in his relation to the 

 community is therefore to do his utmost 

 in self-respecting ways to develop in the 

 community an intelligent appreciation of 

 his proper place within it, an understand- 

 ing of the nature of his science and its 

 potentialities for helpfulness. We shall 

 perhaps arrive at this understanding most 

 directly by considering for a moment 

 something of what the chemist has already 

 done for the community. 



Chemistry enters so intimately even 

 though unobtrusively into every phase of 



modem life and thought that it is perhaps 

 impossible to present in any adequate de- 

 gree the real dependence of the community 

 upon the work of chemists past and pres- 

 ent. Industrial revolutions are seldom 

 chronicled and more rarely celebrated, 

 though their influence upon the welfare of 

 mankind may be as profound as that of 

 other revolutions the records of which are 

 traced in blood. It can no longer be said 

 as was said to the father of chemistry a^ 

 he passed out to execution, 'the republic 

 has no need of chemists.' If we were to 

 take away what chemists have contributed 

 the whole structure of modem society 

 would break down at once. Every com- 

 mercial transaction in the civilized world 

 is based upon the chemist's certificate as 

 to the fineness of the gold which forms our 

 ultimate measure of values. Faith may 

 remove mountains but modem society re- 

 lies on dynamite. Without explosives our 

 great engineering works must cease and the 

 Panama canal no less than modem war- 

 fare becomes impossible. 



Prices rise and fall with the variations 

 in the gold supply as the barometer re- 

 sponds to the changing pressure of the 

 atmosphere, so that to the cyanids and 

 chlorination processes which have so 

 greatly increased the world's supply of 

 gold must be ascribed a potent influence 

 on market prices everywhere. With the 

 development of the steel industry have 

 come great fortunes and greater corpora- 

 tions bringing with them social benefits 

 and social problems hitherto unknown. 

 This industry rests preeminently upon the 

 work of chemists as its greatest master has 

 been quick to testify and is to-day at every 

 point under the strictest chemical control. 

 The Bessemer process alone was estimated 

 by Abraham S. Hewitt to add directly and 

 indirectly $2,000,000,000 yearly to the 

 world 's wealth. Of this vast sum Bessemer 

 himself retained in all about ten million 



