Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/450

446 manufacturer towards science and scientific work; the second is the training of the coming chemist.

When, a few years ago, England awakened to the fact that many industries in which she was the pioneer and at one time the leader were in the main passing to other countries, there went up a great cry for 'technical education.' The nature of the industrial stimulus which has borne such magnificent fruit in Germany was not understood. In the minds of many, a panacea for all their difficulties was to be found in the technical education of the working classes. But this is unquestionably a mistake. Until there is a love of science for its own sake and an appreciation of the value of scientific methods among the leaders of chemical industry, the fruits of technical education can not be reaped. Carl Otto Weber, speaking of this move towards a more general scientific education in England, says "Until the nation as a whole recognizes that the prosecution of scientific study as a mere means of money making is a profanation defeating its own end, the history of industrial development in England will afford the same melancholy spectacle in this, as in the last century, technical education notwithstanding."

The time is past when a factory can be run by rule of thumb; when the chemist is looked down upon simply as a testing machine to be kept at a distance and generally mistrusted. It is true that there are many men to-day who pass under the name of chemist who are little more than testing machines; men who possess the ability to do nothing more than the most strictly routine analysis; but such men will never solve the technical problems of the present or any other time. I would not impugn the dignity or intrinsic value of analytical work—it is the corner stone of all chemical investigation. But I would emphasize the fact, for it is a fact, that the manufacturer who employs a so-called chemist, one trained to 'do' coppers or carbons or acids, and who at the same time expects this chemist to improve his process and keep his business in the skirmish line of the industrial battle, must eventually be numbered among the 'not accounted for'

The second factor in this answer is the training of the coming chemist. What is the reply to that now so oft repeated question, What is the best preparation for a technical chemist? I am personally of the opinion that it is not to be found in the teaching of applied chemistry, as this term is generally understood. This training must provide for something more than simply copying the present—doing as well as others do; we must build for the future. We must provide men who are prepared to solve the unsolved problems. Within the last few months much has been said and written in America about the lack of adequate instruction in technical chemistry in our universities and colleges. It is assumed that American industries based on