July 31, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



151 



for the individual to keep pace with the 

 progress of his science. He is dependent 

 on abstracts, and moreover on their ap- 

 pearing with great promptness, if he would 

 not lose his survey of the entire work of 

 his field. So the work of abstracting to be 

 organized in the International Institute of 

 Chemistry will not only make the older 

 literature specially accessible, but will 

 satisfy this daily more pressing need in 

 giving the investigator an exhaustive sur- 

 vey of his special problems, a survey which 

 can reach according to requirements from 

 the earliest times to the present. Any one 

 who for scientific or economic reasons 

 wishes to follow the progress of any special 

 problem can be assured if he makes use of 

 the Institute, that nothing of importance 

 will escape his notice; but at present it is 

 physically and financially impossible for 

 an individual to have instant recourse to 

 the existing literature of a subject. 



NEW MEANS OF PXJBLICATIONS 



Since the present means of publication, 

 the periodicals, yearly reviews, the 

 monthly or quarterly compilation, the 

 Zentralblatt, have shown themselves in- 

 creasingly insufficient to the increasingly 

 complex and urgent demands of science 

 and technology, the developing science 

 must create new organs of interpretation 

 to make itself effective and can not delay 

 till these organs are provided for it from 

 without. As always with such innovations 

 the need is seen much sooner than the 

 means of satisfying it. There is no other 

 way except for those men who have seen 

 the need and discovered the means of its 

 satisfaction, to produce those means even at 

 considerable personal sacrifice. When the 

 organ has begun its regular activity and 

 shown its usefulness and indispensability, 

 it will no longer be so difficult to obtain 

 the necessary money for its support. 



THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OP 

 CHEMISTRY 



The first thing then for us to do is to 

 bring the International Institute of Chem- 

 istry so far into being that it can perform 

 its real functions, and show clearly its ad- 

 vantages. Let that go on uninterruptedly 

 for five to ten years, and it can safely be 

 assumed that such an institution will show 

 its public and general usefulness so plainly 

 that public and general funds will be pro- 

 vided for its permanent maintenance. 



On the other hand if it were premature 

 or impracticable, time would show that too. 



The benefits of such an institution would 

 extend far beyond the circle of its own sci- 

 ence, large as that circle is, thanks to the 

 extraordinary development of chemistry in 

 the last century. 



But something similar to the systemati- 

 zation which is necessary in this special 

 field is demanded by all other sciences and 

 many other of the common interests of hu- 

 manity. Because of the enormous facilita- 

 tion of personal intercourse by trains and 

 steamers and of intellectual intercourse by 

 books, newspapers, letters, the telephone, the 

 telegraph, the wireless telegraph, etc., man- 

 kind is concentrated into a much smaller 

 space than formerly. The isolated groups, 

 the nations, which were formerly separated 

 by great distances, and possessed few inter- 

 ests in common, are suddenly forced into 

 great interdependence, and the problem of 

 organization, that is, the continual and 

 regular connection of these groups of hu- 

 manity is the most pressing problem of the 

 time. Just as the science of chemistry will 

 create in the International Institute its own 

 organ for performance of tasks for the gen- 

 eral good, so will similar organs be de- 

 veloped in the most various enterprises, 

 and we chemists who originated the Jahr- 

 eshericM as the first of its kind, will have 

 the honor of doing pioneer service in this 



