October 22, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



555 



ness of the employer, ivill hardly pay. 

 Unless his chemist be a fool — and a fool of 

 a chemist is not worth anything — his em- 

 ployer will lose the good will and confidence 

 of the very man whose work is primarily 

 dependent on these indispensable factors. 



Faithful and generous observance of 

 these conditions has brought about the 

 most excellent results in many instances; I 

 know that the contract system, with a salary 

 supplemented by a bonus, or some partici- 

 pation in profits in special departments, 

 has been used with great advantage to all 

 concerned, by some of the most successful 

 chemical companies in continental Europe 

 and in some of the more progressive Amer- 

 ican enterprises. 



It has been objected that a contract of 

 the kind merely binds the employer who 

 has tangible assets, while in most cases it 

 would be difficult to enforce it against 

 faithless employees possessing no property. 

 But even then, a clear and well-defined eon- 

 tract will prevent many misunderstandings 

 which may crop up in the course of time. 

 It has been my experience that direct dis- 

 honesty and faithlessness are merely ex- 

 ceptions among chemists, whatever their 

 other shortcomings may be. 



"We know where the work of the chemist 

 begins. We can never tell where it ends 

 and through what unexpected ramifications 

 it may lead. It is just this fact which adds 

 some zest to the life of the struggling, hard- 

 working chemist, and brings to his work 

 frequently as much excitement as the best 

 of sports; his hopes and disappointments 

 can be compared to those of the restless 

 prospector. 



Pasteur, while he was professor at the 

 University of Lille, was consulted by a local 

 alcohol distiller about some irregularities 

 in the fermentation processes. Little did 

 the great French chemist dream, when he 

 tried to solve this seemingly trifiing indus- 



trial problem, that by doing so he was 

 going to lay bare such an amount of new 

 and unsuspected scientific facts destined to 

 upset all formerly accepted notions, not 

 merely on f ex-mentation, but on life, disease, 

 contagion and epidemics ; that he was about 

 to revolutionize surgery, sanitation and 

 medicine, and create several new depart- 

 ments of medical science ; that he was going 

 to save millions of lives — reduce sorrow and 

 misery. So little were the men of that 

 period prepared for all these stupendous 

 revelations that this great benefactor of the 

 human race had to suffer most from the 

 gibes and violent attacks of some of the 

 best known men of that very medical pro- 

 fession into which he was going to infuse 

 new life by placing it on a true scientific 

 basis. The history of the stubborn polemics 

 and angry discussions at the French Acad- 

 emy show that, at that time at least, the 

 imagination even of men of science, could 

 not expand to the point of perceiving that 

 medicine and surgery were to be remodeled 

 by a mere chemist. L. H. Baekeland 



DOCTOBATES CONFEBBED BY AMEBIC AN 

 UNIVEBSITIES 

 There were last year conferred 556 degrees 

 of doctor of philosophy or science by institu- 

 tions competent to confer these degrees. This 

 number exceeds the number for last year by 

 10 per cent., and is double the average number 

 for the decennium beginning in 1898, when 

 these records were begun. During that de- 

 cennium seven institutions conferred 2,045 

 degrees and the remaining 38 institutions 685 

 degrees. The seven institutions still lead deci- 

 sively, but not to the same extent, and their 

 grouping has been altered. In the first period, 

 Chicago, Harvard, Columbia, Tale and Johns 

 Hopkins each conferred an average of over 30 

 degrees, while the number at Pennsylvania and 

 Cornell was in the neighborhood of 20. In 

 the course of later years Columbia has sur- 

 passed Chicago, and Harvard has not kept 

 equal with these two universities. Tale and 

 Johns Hopkins have remained about stationary 



