University of Virginia Library

II. The Mathematical and National Science Group

PROBLEMS IN SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION

By Charles Lee Reese, Ph.D., Sc.D., Chemical Director of E. I. du Pont de Nemours
and Company

During the last twenty years, I have had to handle thousands of men,
coming from many institutions of learning throughout the country; in fact,
during the war I had to do with about ten per cent. of all the chemists in our
land, at least forty-five of them being graduates of the University of Virginia.
They were men of various degrees of training in chemistry, and consequently
I have been able to observe many of their shortcomings. Among
these might be mentioned a lack of sufficient training in English to enable
them to express their thoughts, and the results of their work, in clear concise
language, a tendency toward what I might call "sloppiness" for the lack of a
better word, lack of thorough preparation in literature study before entering
upon a particular piece of work, and even lack of knowledge as to how to use
the literature, and what kind of information can be obtained from the
literature; in other words, entering upon a piece of work without a thorough
knowledge of the state of the art. The ability to judge the value of information
found in the literature is often found wanting, and I might easily go

on in such an enumeration regarding sufficient training in methods of
research, and lack of judgment in selecting the best method of attack.

"Sloppiness," I might almost say is a characteristic of the American
people, due to the fact that they are almost always in a hurry to get through
with what they are doing in order to take up something else, a tendency
which prevents thoroughness. Our primary schools are affected by it,
attempting generally to fill the heads of the pupils with knowledge, instead
of training the mind to habits of care, accuracy and efficiency. Even our
college entrance requirements are possibly responsible for too much pressure
for knowledge rather than training. The Germans have overcome this
tendency by making machines out of their school children, and it is questionable
how far we should go in this direction. When I was at the University
it was said that it took all of a man's first year to learn how to study, and
some of them never learn, consequently many never reach their senior
year.

Now to come down to the college work. Most important of all is the
personality of the teaching staff, and the effect of that personality on the
attitude of the student to his work. I have always felt that the undergraduate
should have personal contact with the principal men of the faculty,
the men who are most inspiring from a moral as well as a professional standpoint;
men who are character builders and leaders who inspire confidence
and interest in the work. As a friend of mine once said in speaking of
college athletics creating loyalty and college spirit, why should the work
not be made just as interesting, and as much enthusiasm be created over it
as over athletics. This can only be done by the ability of the professors to
create such interest and enthusiasm. Mallet, Remsen and Bunsen were
men of this type in my day, and no doubt there are many to-day of the same
kind. Owing to our hurried life, and the desire and necessity, in many
cases, for men to reach the bread winning stage, too many men enter the
profession without that liberal education included in the old-time college
course, involving modern and ancient languages, physics, mathematics,
arts and letters, history and philosophy, which fit a man for the higher
side of life, and I wish to emphasize the importance of such training wherever
possible before a man enters upon the pursuit of his professional course.
This applies to the chemist, the physicist, the lawyer, the engineer, as well
as the business man, or a man in any other walk of life. I am quite sure
that the chemist who has had such an education will forge ahead much faster
than his less fortunate fellow-chemist. With this kind of training a man
is in a much better position to determine the professional career best suited
to him.

There has been during the past thirty years a tendency to make the
training of chemists more practical, as they say, and many committees have

been appointed to study and recommend courses of training for technical
chemists. I have often been asked by professors and students to outline a
course of study for a chemist who wishes to enter the explosives or dyes
industry for instance, and my reply has invariably been to teach them
chemistry, physics, mathematics and English, and the experience and
application will come fast enough when they are up against the problems to
be met in any industry.

There is at present a tendency to make a compromise between the
liberal education and the professional education to meet the undoubted
demand, and those of you who will read the Yale Alumni Weekly of
April 29th, will see what Yale expects to do in her four-year course in
Chemistry.

In their Freshman year, besides their usual course in Chemistry, they
have English, Language, History, Mathematics and Government. In the
Sophomore year much stress is laid on Mathematics and Physics, as well as
Mineralogy and Crystallography with English and the Languages, also
electives in Drawing and Bacteriology. The Juniors devote seventy per
cent of their time to Chemistry, with some Geology, and as new features,
very important courses in Economics and Business Finance are introduced.
The Seniors devote most of their time to Chemistry, with lectures on
Industrial Chemistry, Metallurgy and Metallography, with a chemical
seminar and a course in Business Management as a supplement. As electives,
they have courses in Statistics, Business Law and Principles of
Accounting.

When I was here we had General Industrial, Analytical and Agricultural
Chemistry, with a short course in Pharmaceutical Chemistry for the
"Meds."

General Chemistry included lectures on Physics, Organic and Inorganic
Chemistry. Industrial Chemistry was a most comprehensive lecture course
on the subject, and has proved of inestimable value to me in my career.
Physical Chemistry, as a subdivision, was hardly known then, but now has
grown to be one of the most important branches of the science, and Organic
Chemistry was in its youth in this country. The word "Colloid" was used
in contradistinction to "Crystalloid," but Colloid Chemistry was still to be
born, and it has hardly yet got out of its swaddling clothes. Catalysis was a
name for the unknown, and if you should hear Dr. Bancroft deliver his three
celebrated lectures on that subject, you would learn that the theories of
Catalysis are mainly postulatory, and most of the postulates advanced can
be disposed of, in spite of which many important discoveries and accomplishments
have been attained through Catalysis, and I believe I can safely say
that it presents as fertile a field for research as any other field in the chemical
science.

It has been suggested that I say what I think the opportunities of the
Universities are in the future, and how they best can be realized, especially
as regards graduate work in pure and applied chemistry.

What I have already said is perhaps more or less generalization, but it
expresses thoughts that I have had for sometime, and you will forgive me if
I have taken this opportunity to express them.

The fields of natural science covered by the Academic and Graduate
Schools at present are Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Geology and Physics,
to all of which Chemistry is related to a greater or less degree, for we
are able to apply Chemistry even to the stone. Physiological, Biological,
Pathological and Pharmacological Chemistry seem to be included incidentally
in the Medical Department. In the chemical courses we have General,
Analytical, Organic, Physical, Colloidal, Industrial, Agricultural, Theoretical,
Metallurgical and Physiological, all covered by a few men, and these
same men must take care of the post-graduate work in any of these subdivisions,
if required. Attempts are made in other institutions to cover
special subjects such as ceramics, cements, dyestuffs and dyeing, electrochemistry,
fermentation, photography, etc. Without a very large
staff, I doubt the advisability of undertaking such special subjects, and even
then a man properly trained in the principles and practice of the science will
soon become expert in these special lines after once being connected with the
industry, and his future training in these lines can thus be carried on after
he becomes a bread winner.

The Endowment Fund will assist materially in many ways, but first
of all it should be used to increase the compensation of the present members
of the teaching staff to give them a living compensation, and the ability to set
something aside for a rainy day, and also enable the University to secure
the services of able men in the future. Second, to increase the teaching
staff to such a point that they will have time to devote to study and research
work, and enable them to gain reputations which will induce students to
remain at the University for post-graduate work, and attract men from
other institutions to study under such men. At present the number in the
post-graduate schools is small, but owing to the great impetus which has
been given in this country to the pursuit of the natural sciences, especially
Physics and Chemistry by the late war, the establishment of the Dye
Industry and the Chemical Warfare Service will create increasing demands
for many men thoroughly trained in these sciences, especially in the fields
of fundamental and applied research, so there is room for growth in the
University in this direction.

I hope to see the day, or at least the day will come, when the University
can have professors who can specialize in each subdivision of the sciences;
men who will have only a few hours each week to devote to the lecture room

and the seminar, and much time to devote to research and study, and
become leaders in research, and developing methods of research which will
draw to them a group of students devoted to their particular specialty. It
is only by such methods that rapid progress can be made in our search for the
truth, and advance in science and the arts. It is as important for our great
universities to develop great men in the field of professors and teachers; men
who can devote their entire time to the search for truth in the fields of
natural science, as it is to develop the young men of our country to practice
their profession in their particular fields, for the former is essential to the
latter.

With the establishment of such highly developed scientific industries
as the dye industry, and the recent tendency to utilize science in all industries,
many such men as I feel the universities should develop will be utilized
in the industries.

As the industries become more and more highly developed, they will
need more highly trained men in the special subdivisions of the sciences.
The present demand for highly trained specialists in the industries is a serious
menace to our country and the world, and if our great universities are to
maintain their force of such men to train others, this can only be done by
ample provision for their support. This brings me to a point where I wish to
bring up for discussion a plan which I have been able to follow in a few cases
for relieving, to a small degree, this serious situation. It is a plan which
has been followed extensively in Europe. An industry, with or without
a very complete research organization, can profitably retain professors, who
have made reputations, at a salary which, in some cases, may exceed that
which they receive from the university, by consulting work. This has
proved of great advantage to the professor himself, not only from a financial,
but also from a professional point of view in his work for the university, and
of great advantage to the university. Of course this should be done with
the distinct understanding that the consulting work is not to interfere in any
way with duties to the University. The unselfish character of some of our
consultants has been demonstrated by the fact that one of them has used his
retainer to employ a man to carry on some of his work.

The research student is much benefited by the presence of a number of
others in the laboratory doing research work, whether in the same or other
branches of science, or divisions of his science. It makes it possible for each
to be familiar with a number of problems, and the method of prosecuting
them, and increases the value of the seminar.

In closing I want to thank you for your indulgence, and although there
is nothing very striking in what I have had to say I hope it may lead to some
discussion which will be constructive, and of value to our Alma Mater in the
future.

A PLEA FOR THE PERFECT

By William Jackson Humphreys, Ph.D., of the United States Weather Bureau

The most insistent appeal to the intellect, and the most effective in
every line of human progress, is the call of the perfect. The paintings of the
great masters arouse an admiration akin to reverence, and inspire us ourselves
to work for the faultless in whatever we do. And the same is true of
architecture. He that has an intelligence at all measurably above that of the
beast of the field is himself ennobled by the presence of a beautiful building.
The towering spires of a Gothic cathedral, the stately columns of a Grecian
temple, the restful roof of a Buddhist shrine, evoke alike a reverence and a
high resolve to live the better life.

In statuary, too, and in every other art, the compelling call is the same.
Who can behold that most wonderful, perhaps, of all statues, the Daibutsu
of Kamakura, and not be thrilled by its magical calm—the peace of
Nirvana, the calm of death and eternity?

As it is in these few great things and noble arts, so it is likewise with all
the others, perfection and perfection alone—accomplishment in which no
fault can be found—commands unqualified admiration for the work of
others, and sets the satisfying goal of our own endeavors.

And now let us come home and be more specific. We here at the University
of Virginia are wont to speak of the Sage of Monticello in tones that
evidence respect and appreciation. But how did he come to be a sage?
Not alone by his invariable honesty of purpose, nor solely by his splendid
ability; but in great measure through his transcendent capacity to take
trouble—his patience to make perfect. And that over which he labored the
longest, the University of Virginia, he loved the most. He realized, as all of us
must, that without intellectual training political independence is impossible,
and religious freedom only moral chaos. Thus the most patient labor of all
his maturer years, the labor of his deepest love and most abiding hope, was
the founding of an educational institution perfect in all its plans and purposes.
An institution in which the student was from the first trusted as a
man of honor, a trust promptly justified and that has become a priceless
heritage; an institution manned by scholars of high renown who mingled
freely and most friendly with those who came to learn of their wisdom; and,
finally, an institution whose very columns and arches and domes, whose
harmonious assemblage of much of the architectural glory of Greece and
grandeur of Rome, insistently inspires to higher resolves.

Here, as nowhere else, one comes under the abiding influence of the
father of the University of Virginia, of him who heard so clearly and heeded
so well the call of the perfect. Here thousands have heard that same call,
and many have heeded in their several ways. Here, we believe, this call

was ever present with him who has enriched literature, as long as man shall
read, with such compelling and varied classics as The Bells, The Raven, and
Annabel Lee. Here, too, all was in harmony with the firm resolve and high
purpose of him who but yesterday bade a despairing world to hope—bade
it hope by showing so clearly a rational and righteous road every nation can
follow, and yet in some fashion will follow, for civilization shall not perish
from the face of the earth.

So reasoned the poet Longfellow many years ago, and the case is miserably
worse to-day. The burdens of taxation are oppressively heavy. Some
say owing to the scientific work done by the National Government, aye, even
to the duplication of such work in the city of Washington! "Blind leaders,
who strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel." Had the world not been filled
with terror, had there been no "wealth bestowed on camps," the present
tax on one luxury alone, tobacco, would meet, or nearly meet, the whole of
the Government's needs—nor is this tax overly heavy, nor are our people
inordinate burners of incense before the goddess Nicotine.

The burdens of the world would, indeed, be unbearable were it not
becoming clear as the noonday sun that they are avoidable, and that, being
avoidable, they soon will be avoided. We are but in the throes of one stage
of community evolution, an evolution from the isolated savage through
the tribe, the clan, the state and the nation to the federation of the civilized
world, an evolution that has always closely followed, and of necessity must
closely follow, the development of the arts of travel and communication.
That is, as science progresses and its applications are made perfect our
relations to each other whether as individuals, communities, or nations, also
vary. To the ignorant savage restricted by natural barriers to a small
island, or other limited territory, no form of government is desirable or possible
beyond that of a primitive tribe. To the most advanced peoples of
to-day, however, those who literally can talk to each other though at the ends
of the earth, and to whose swift and easy travel there is no obstacle, the
restrictions of the tribe and the clan would be intolerable and impracticable.
To them nothing short of some form of a universal federation can be satisfactory.
One's friends and acquaintances to-day, and his councillors and
aids in whatever he is doing, are in every inhabited portion of the globe.
We cannot do without each other, neither they without us nor we without
them. Hence our plea for the perfect includes the bringing of nations together

into that form of mutual support that most encourages the growth
of each and makes for the good of all.

Now, as is known of the whole world, in the great work of formulating
a code adapted to the needs and aspirations of those in the very van of
civilization the University of Virginia can claim high honors. First,
through her great "father" and again, equally, through her most distinguished
alumnus.

But let us be critical, for self-criticism is always wholesome. What
has been the growth of science and its application to the arts since our
Alma Mater began her splendid training of young men, less than one century
ago? And what part have we, her alumni, taken in this conquest of nature?
Every chapter in the story of modern science is amazing almost beyond
belief. We live to-day in essentially a different world from that of our
grandfathers, different in many respects from even that of our own boyhood
days; and the difference is this, that the world is a better place to live in
than it was, so much so, indeed, that many of the things we now regard
as common necessities only a little while ago were not possible even as
luxuries.

Consider some of the more common events in the course of one's daily
life. All of us remember, or, at least, know those who do remember, when
that morning necessity, the ubiquitous bathtub, was practically unknown.
Of course a few buckets of water, carried from the spring and emptied into
the old wash-tub, were really worth while, but the undertaking was such a
tax on one's moral courage, that baths before breakfast were not then the
order of the day. And the cooking of breakfast, what a job it was! Coals,
kept alive through the night by a cover of ashes, were scraped out and a
wood fire kindled, not in the convenient stove, for no one had such a contrivance,
but in a big fire place, and after a time one had something to eat.
Rarely, though, did he have fresh meat (cold storage was unknown) nor did
he ever have the luxury of fresh fruits and fresh vegetables save those
alone that grew in his own locality, nor even these except in their limited
season. Who of the first faculty, or early students, of this University ever
wholesomely and delightfully began his breakfast with grape-fruit, oranges,
pineapples, mangos, or any other of the delicious tropical fruits that now
load our tables? And who in the tropics ever then tasted an apple, a pear,
a peach, a plum, or a cherry? Who in those days, here or elsewhere, ever
feasted on that luscious and most common, perhaps, of all vegetables, the
tomato—then regarded as a thing not only unfit for food, but even deadly
poisonous?

If, as was sometimes the case, you had occasion to write to a friend,
you did so with a goose-quill pen, blotted with sand, sealed with wax, and
forwarded your letter at the marvelous speed of, perhaps, twenty miles a

day. If you had to talk to even a neighbor, and he was beyond hallooing
distance, you simply had to go in person to see him, and, whatever the distance,
you could only walk, ride horseback, or go in a lumbering carriage.

If mother wanted to dye a piece of cloth she herself, most likely, had
spun and woven, she did not choose exactly the hue and tint, or shade, she
would have and then send us to a convenient drug store to get, for a few
pennies, precisely that thing, but sent us to the woods for the inner bark of a
black oak. This she steeped according to traditional custom, then dipped
the cloth in the decoction thus obtained, and accepted with fortitude
whatever stain happened to result.

Of course we did not often become ill, for only the most robust survived
babyhood, but when we did get sick it generally was the herb doctor that
came to see us, and the concoctions he made at least inspired an earnest hope
for a rapid convalescence. If, perchance, the case called for surgery, we
were indeed unfortunate. What we now call major surgery, and even much
that is essentially minor, was rarely ventured. Small operations of course
were made, but on the conscious patient and with a dirty knife. There were
no hospitals, except in the largest cities, and even these were at times centers
of infection rather than restorative institutions.

Whether, however, one got sick in those days and sent for the neighborhood
herbist, or stayed well and hoed the corn, pealed bark to dye the home
spun, or did whatever other chores the exigencies of a primitive life demanded,
the end of the day at last came as it now comes. But when it did
come there was then no movie to go to, whether instructive, amusing, or
demoralizing; no graphophone to stage a grand opera, materialize a brass band,
or set amuck a barbaric jazz, as one's whims and fancies might suggest; no
phone to chat over; no good light, electric or other kind, to ready by—only a
flickering home-made tallow candle, or sputtering pine torch, that for a
few minutes flared up unsteadily and then went out. Finally, at the end of
every such "perfect day," one scraped the live embers together and covered
them with ashes for starting the morning's fire, saw that all windows were
closed tight, the door bolted, and every other possible ventilator sealed up
lest any of the "noxious night air" might get in, and then went to sleep, to
dream, perhaps, of witches and hobgoblins, in a bed as innocent of springs as
a concrete floor.

True, we often speak, and speak earnestly, of the good old days of yore,
but in so doing we really have in mind the buoyancy of our own vigorous
youth and the loved ones of our childhood days. We never mean that we
would like to discard the latest conveniences and go back, not to our earlier
age, for all of us would like to be young again, but to the way the world lived
only a few decades ago.

Perhaps this reference to a few decades may seem extravagant, but in

reality it is not, for our knowledge of nature and the harnessing of natural
forces to our own needs grew so rapidly, and with such acceleration, with the
founding of laboratories and the consequent spread of inquiry that men
still living have seen half, aye, more than half, of that wonderful evolution
from the stick and stone of the cave man to the myriad marvels of the present.
Take from the air every aeroplane; from the roads every automobile;
from the country every train; from the cities every electric light; from ships
every wireless apparatus; from the oceans all cables; from the land all
wires; from shops all motors; from office buildings every elevator, telephone
and typewriter; let epidemics spread at will; let major surgery be impossible
—all this and vastly more would be the terrible catastrophe if the tide of
time should but ebb to the childhood days of men still living.

Nor do all those marvels exhaust our list. Give us a lump of coal, a
piece of sulphur and a bit of salt, and we will now, as but a few years ago
we could not, work such wonders as even Aladdin with his magical lamp
never dreamed of—make brighter, faster and more varied colors than are
found in field or forest; sweeter perfumes than scent the flowers; richer
flavors than season the fruit; food for plants that shames the richest soil;
explosives that rend the hardest rock; cures for many an ill; and poisons
more deadly than ever a Borgia desired. In short, with even these few raw
materials, we now raise our food, delight the palate, adorn the body, cure
ourselves, and kill the enemy!

Oh yes, the scoffer of science may say, but no exploring De Soto has
ever found the elixir of life. No, we must confess, not yet in all its perfection,
but the persistent biologist has found it for some animals, and has
successfully applied it. Already he has made excised portions of the heart
of the embryo chick live and grow until the chick itself, had it been permitted
to grow up, might well have been dead of age—and still that lone,
excised heart lived on. Already well-organized animals have been made to live
forwards and backwards from youth to age and from age to youth over and
over with never a sign that the end was near. What then is beyond our
reasonable hope? But to realize that hope we must heed the call of the perfect,
must push those investigations, as surely we shall, and the thousands
of others they in turn suggest, to their ultimate conclusion.

Finally, what have we, faculty, students, and alumni, of this University,
been doing the while this great stream of investigation and discovery has
been broadening and deepening into a veritable ocean of knowledge? We
have made many contributions to this knowledge, and of that we are justly
proud, but not all of us have lived up to our opportunities.

Let us, therefore, insist that each important position in this University
is an opportunity, as it is in any leading institution, to add to the sum of
human knowledge, and that opportunity is only another name for imperative

duty. Let it further be recognized, indeed let it become a compelling
unwritten law, that opportunity shall be given only to him who has demonstrated
his ability to improve it, and that the shirking of duty carries with it
the forfeiture of place. Possibly such a custom might seem a little drastic,
but it would be no more so, nor is there less reason for it, than is the wholesome
honor system among students. Nor let us alumni require ought of
others that we do not in equal measure demand of ourselves.

But how, it occasionally is asked, can any man both investigate and
teach? A far better question is this: How can he teach advanced students,
at least, if he has not that love of his subject that compels him to investigate?
None but the enthusiast can impart to others an earnest desire
to learn—blood does not come from turnips. Furthermore, wherever the
spark of genius shows, and if it be accompanied by industry, in the name of
humanity fan it—give its possessor every needed aid and encouragement.
Fan the live spark. No one ever yet got a glowing fire by fanning dead
embers.

And here let us once more urge our plea for the perfect. Let an investigation,
whether large or small, be given ample time, patience, and trouble.
Let it be so worked over, yea, so persistently labored over, that there can
be no occasion for any one to repeat it until other discoveries reveal a better
line of attack, or greater skill in instrumentation provides a desirable higher
degree of accuracy. And let the report, whether of progress or of finished
result, be brief. Let not our reasons be, as were those of Gratiano, "as two
grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff," where they are not worth the
trouble it takes to find them. Neither let our ideas be muddled like those
of the freshman who said he knew who Esau was—"the chap that wrote
short stories and sold his copyright for a mess of potash." In short, have
something to say, say it, quit talking about it. But above all have something
to say.