85 i 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 833 



DOCTOBATES CONFBEBED IN THE SCIENCES ' 



AGRICULTUEAL CHEMISTRY TEACHERS 



Bulletin No. 224, of the Office of Experi- 

 ment Stations, shows the organization of 

 the different agricultural colleges in De- 

 cember, 1909. Prom this publication we 

 find that there are 228 teachers of chem- 

 istry in these institutions who come in con- 

 tact with the students in agriculture. This 

 list does not include all the chemistry teach- 

 ers, therefore. These are distributed ap- 

 proximately equally in the different sec- 

 tions except that the south Atlantic group 

 has about half of her proportion, the de- 

 ficiency being made up by the north central 

 group. Of the 228, 51, or about one fourth 

 have published enough research work to 

 find a place in the ' ' Directory of American 

 Men of Science," 1906 edition. This pub- 

 lication, as is well known, contains brief 

 biographical sketches of those who by re- 

 search work have contributed somewhat to 

 our store of knowledge. This is an average 

 of a little more than one for each college. 

 In number of teaching agricultural coUege 

 chemists named in the Directory the north 

 Atlantic and north central divisions lead,, 

 are about equal in numbers and together 

 make about three fifths of the total number. 

 The other groups are about equal and each 

 has about half as many as each of the two 



^ Compiled from Science, August 19, 1910. 



groups first named. The larger proportion 

 of names comes from the chemists in the 

 south Atlantic division, it, out of a total of 

 24 chemists, having 9 names in the direct- 

 ory. 



In the 1910-11 edition of "Who's Who 

 in America" 31 find a place, or about one 

 out of every 7 of the 228. This publication, 

 now issued for the sixth time, contains the 

 names of those who on apcount of their 

 achievements in some directions have be- 

 come subjects of more or less national inter- 

 est. The greater number of agricultural 

 college chemists, as in the case of the diree- 

 ory, comes from the north central division 

 which is followed closely by the north At- 

 lantic division. These two together make 

 up three fourths of the names, the other 

 groups of states falling very far behind. 



There is still another standard for com- 

 parison. The editor of the directory re- 

 ferred to has prefixed a star in his valu- 

 able publication to the names of about a 

 thousand of those whose work is supposed 

 to be the most important. Of the 228 chem- 

 istry teachers in the agricultural colleges 

 whose names appear in the organization 

 list prepared by the office of experiment 

 stations, nine appear in the directory with a 

 star. Five of these are in the north Atlantic 

 and four in the north central groups. 

 There are no starred names in the south 

 Atlantic, south central or western divi- 

 sions. These figures are shown in detail in 

 the following table. 



It may be interesting to see how the 

 chemist in the agricultural college com- 

 pares with his fellow chemist, when judged 

 by the same standard. Information is lack- 

 ing as to the exact number of chemists in 

 America. There are 4,653 resident mem- 

 bers of the American Chemical Society, 

 and since many are not members of that 

 society we know that there are more chem- 

 ists than that number in America. If from 

 this number we subtract 228, the number 



