September 2, 1892.] 



SCIENCE. 



129 



man would have set forth the closed chain of carbon combination, 

 and Kekule, we may be sure, would have done something else to 

 clarify chemistry. Such being the limitations of the masters, 

 what contributions can be expected in this age from a worker 

 who is without the literature of his subject? 



The Cure for the Crank. 



In many a town some solitary thinker is toiling intensely over 

 some self-imposed problem, devoting to it such sincerity and 

 strength as should be of real service, while still he obtains no 

 recognition. Working without books, unaware of memoirs on 

 the theme he loves, he tries the task of many with the strength 

 of one. Such as he sometimes send communications to this asso- 

 ciation. An earnest worker, his utter isolation is quite enough to 

 convert him into a crank. To every solitary investigator I should 

 desire to say, get to a library of your subject, learn how to use its 

 literature, and possess yourself of what there is on the theme of 

 your choice, or else determine to give it up altogether. You may 

 get on very well without college laboratories, you can survive it 

 if unable to reach the meetings of men of learning, you can do 

 without the counsel of an authority, but you can hardly be a 

 contributor in science except you gain the use of its literature. 



The Want of Original Memoirs. 



First in importance to the investigator are the original memoirs 

 of previous investigators. The chemical determinations of the 

 century have been reported by their authors in the periodicals. 

 The serials of the years, the continuous living repositories of all 

 chemistry, at once the oldest and the latest of its publications, 

 these must be accessible to the worker who would add to this 

 science. A library for research is voluminous, and portions of it 

 are said to be scarce, nevertheless it ought to be largely supplied. 

 The laboratory itself is not more important than the library of 

 science. In the public libraries of our cities, in all colleges now 

 being established, the original literature of science ought to be 

 planted. It is a wholesome literature, at once a stimulant and 

 a corrective of that impulse to discovery that is frequent among 

 the people of this country. That a good deal of it is in foreign 

 languages is hardly a disadvantage; there ought to be some ex- 

 ercise for the modern tongues that even the public high schools 

 are teaching. That the sets of standard journals are getting out 

 of print is a somewhat infirm objection. They have no right to 

 be out of print in these days when they give us twenty pages of 

 blanket newspaper at breakfast, and offer us Scott's novels in 

 full for ]e?s than the cost of a day's entertainment. As for the 

 limited editions of the old sets, until reproduced by new types, 

 they may be multiplied through photographic methods. When 

 there is a due demand for the original literature of chemistry, a 

 demand in accord with the prospective need for its use, the sup- 

 ply will come, let us believe, more nearly within the means of 

 those who require it than it now does. 



The Indexing of the Literature. 



What I have said of the literature of one science can be said, in 

 the main, of the literature of other sciences. And other things 

 ought to be said of what is wanted to make the literature of sci- 

 ence more accessible to consulting readers. A great deal of in- 

 dexing is wanted. Systematic bibliography, both of previous 

 and of current literature, would add a third to the productive 

 power of a large number of workers. It would promote common 

 acquaintance with the original communications of research, and 

 a general demand for the serial sets. Topical bibliographies are 

 of great service. In this regard I desire to ask attention to the 

 annual reports, in this association for nine years past, of the com- 

 mittee on Indexing Chemical Literature, as well as to recent 

 systematic undertakings in geology, and like movements in 

 zoology and other sciences, also to the Index Medicus, as a 

 continuous bibliography of current professional literature. 



Societies and institutions of science may well act as patrons to 

 the bibliography of research, the importance of which has been 

 recognized by the fathers of this association. In 1855, Joseph 

 Henry, then a past-president of this body, memorialized the 

 British association for cooperation in bibliography, offering that 



aid of the Smithsonian Institution which has so often been af- 

 forded to publications of special service. The British association 

 appointed a committee, who reported in 1857, after which the 

 undertaking was proposed to the Royal Society. The Royal 

 Society made an appeal to her Majesty's government, and obtained 

 the necessary stipend. Such was the inception of the Royal So- 

 ciety Catalogue of scientific papers of this century, in eight quarto 

 volumes, as issued in 1867 and 1877. Seriously curtailed from 

 the genei'ous plan of the committee who proposed it, limited to 

 the single feature of an index of authors, it is nevertheless of 

 great help in literary search. Before any list of papers, how- 

 ever, we must place a list of the serials that contain them, as 

 registered by an active member of this association, an instance of 

 industry and critical judgment. I refer to the well-known cata- 

 logue of scientific and technical periodicals, of about five thou- 

 sand numbers, in jjublication from 1665 to 1883, together with the 

 catalogue of chemical periodicals by the same author.' 



Compilations of Science. 



Allied to the much-needed service in bibliography, is the ser- 

 vice in compilation of the Constants of Nature. In the preface 

 of his dictionary of solubilities, in 1856, Professor Storer said, 

 " that chemical science itself might gain many advantages if all 

 known facts regarding solubility were gathered from their widely- 

 scattered original sources into one special comprehensive work." 

 That the time for the philosophical study of solution was near at 

 hand has been verified by recent extended monographs on this 

 subject. In like manner, Thomas Carnelley in England, and early 

 and repeatedly our own Professor Clarke in the United States," 

 bringing multitudes of scattered results into co-ordination, have 

 augmented the powers of chemical service. 



What bibliography does for research, theHandworterbuch does 

 for education, and for technology. It makes science wieldy to 

 the student, the teacher, and the artisan. The chief dictionaries 

 of science, those of encyclopedic scope, ought to be provided gen- 

 erally in public libraries, as well as in the libraries of all high 

 schools.' The science classes in preparatory schools should make 

 acquaintance with scientific literature in this form. If scholars 

 be assigned exercises which compel reference reading, they will 

 gain a beginning of that accomplishment too often neglected, 

 even in college, how to use books. 



The Laboratory Method. 



The library is a necessity of the laboratory. Indeed, there is 

 much in common between what is called the laboratory method, 

 and what might be called the library method, in college training. 

 The educational laboratory was instituted by chemistry, first tak- 

 ing form under Liebig at Giessen only about fifty years ago. Ex- 

 perimental study has been adopted in one subject after another, 

 until now the "laboratory method " is advocated in language and 

 literature, in philosophy and law. It is to be hoped that chem- 

 istry will not fall behind in the later applications of " the new 

 education " in which she took so early a part. 



Urgency of the Chemical Task. 



The advancement of chemical science is not confined to dis- 

 covery, nor to education, nor to economic use. All of those in- 

 terests it should embrace. To disparage one of them is injurious 

 to the others. Indeed, they ought to have equal support. It 



1 Bolton's Catalogue of Sclentlflo and Technical Periodicals (1885 : Smith- 

 sonian) omits the serials of the societies, as these are the subject of Soudder's 

 Catalogue of Scientific Serials (1879: Harvard Univ.). On the contrary, Bol- 

 ton's Catalogue of Chemical Periodicals (1885: N. T. Acad. Sci.) Includes the 

 publications of societies as well as other serials. Chemical technology is also 

 represented in the last-named work. 



^ The service of compilation of this character is again indicated by this ex- 

 tract from Clarke's introduction to the first edition of his " Constants '" (1S73) : 

 " While engaged upon the study of some interesting points in theoretical 

 chemistry, the compiler of the following tables had occasion to make frequent 

 reference to the then existing lists of specific gravities. None of these, how- 

 ever, were complete enough. ..." 



3 The statistics ol school libraries in the United States are very meagre, 

 the expenditures for them being included with that for apparatus. Forliora- 

 rles and apparatus of all common schools, both primary and secondary, the 

 annual expenditure is set at $987,048, which is about seven-tenths ol one per 

 cent of the total expendlture.for these schools. 



