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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXV. No. 644 



chemist, two facts should be kept in view. 

 Primarily, he must understand chemical 

 changes. Secondly, he must have the 

 ability to devise and operate machinery 

 and appliances in which chemical changes 

 are to be applied on a manufacturing scale. 

 It would seem that the tendency in some 

 of the modern courses in chemical engi- 

 neering is to give too great prominence to 

 the engineering features at the expense of 

 time that should be devoted to chemistry, 

 with the production of neither an engineer 

 nor a chemist. There is not time in a 

 course of four years to make a good 

 chemist and a finished engineer in the same 

 individual ; neither is it possible to make a 

 good chemist without sufficient time and 

 attention for comprehensive training in 

 chemistry. But it is possible to make a 

 good chemist and to allow him adequate 

 time to gain such knowledge of the engi- 

 neering features as will give him a good 

 foundation for expansion when he enters 

 the factory. In all departments of busi- 

 ness the individual who has learned how to 

 do things himself is best fitted to direct the 

 efforts of others; the superintendent who 

 can saw off a board by the square or set 

 a post straight and true, can instantly see 

 whether another is doing his duty. The 

 broadly trained chemist must, therefore, 

 have had practise in handling tools, in 

 working wood and iron; he needs the ele- 

 ments of contraction, of machine design. 

 He must understand the economic produc- 

 tion and application of power from dif- 

 ferent sources. An important part of his 

 equipment is the nature and manipulation 

 of electrical currents and machinery. 

 Such breadth of knowledge may be gained 

 in courses on shop practise, thermo- 

 dynamics, applied mechanics, heat and 

 steam, hydraulics and machine construc- 

 tion, attendance on courses in electricity 

 with laboratory practise. 



In this connection the recurring ques- 



tion of adequate time in the ordinary 

 course may be satisfactorily answered by 

 the tendency in most institutions to ex- 

 tend the limits of practical work. In Case 

 School of Applied Science, the entire month 

 of June is given up to laboratory and 

 field work as a practise term, which adds 

 about one year of practical study to the 

 course of four years. The student is 

 under constant supervision, with sufficient 

 oral instruction to keep him intelligently 

 occupied. Continuous laboratory practise 

 accomplishes very much more that the in- 

 terrupted hours of the other terms. In 

 answer to the possible objection that it is 

 some infringement on the time for lectures 

 and recitations, it is true that two or three 

 weeks a year are lost to these exercises ; but 

 what is gained in practical application in 

 chemistry makes it about equivalent to a 

 course of five years, and the average stu- 

 dent is easily able to accomplish the work 

 mentioned above in mechanics and elec- 

 tricity. Indeed, before this recent change 

 in the additional time devoted to the 

 laboratory, our best students and even 

 those of average ability by dint of hard 

 work were able to finish this course. "With 

 no sacrifice, therefore, of necessary train- 

 ing in chemistry, the student receives what 

 is needful when he enters on the practise 

 of his profession. Such a course may be 

 designated as engineering chemistry, in 

 which the student becomes primarily a 

 chemist. 



To acquire an adequate grasp of founda- 

 tion principles in chemistry it is necessary 

 to include thorough comprehensive courses 

 in general, inorganic, analytical, theoretical 

 and physical, and organic chemistry, with 

 much time devoted to laboratory work. 

 This routine is practically the same in all 

 institutions, with increasing attention to 

 experimental physical chemistry. It seems 

 scarcely necessary to allude to the sub- 

 sidiary sub,ieets: English, modern Ian- 



