INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEER1,YG CHEMISTRY
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Arthur Amos Noyes Merrill, of the Newburyport High School, to inspire the youth with a great interest in chemistry. Samuel Mulliken, a boyhood friend, gives me certain reliable information on this phase. The dining room of the Noyes homestead, he says, was large, lined with books, and used by Amos Noyes as a study. I t seemed to the youthful A voice, low and vibrant, rhythmically intoned chemists, Sam and Arthur, an ideal place to carry Kipling’s well-known lines. The class in chemiout certain important ex p e r i m e n t s . Using cal principles, welcoming this change from the Steele’s Fourteen Weeks of Chemistry as a guide, customary problems, listened with rapt attention. they set up their apparatus on the table, for the And the faith that rnoveth mountains didn’t seem to purpose of preparing phosphoretted hydrogen. help my labours They brought alcoholic potash to boiling and As 1 faced the sheer main-ranges, whipping up and added yellow phosphorus, when-it happens t o leading down. From a painting b y S. Seymour Thomas the best of chemists-the flask broke with dire Arthur Am o s Noyes This inspiriting poem, “The Explorer,” was results to rug, table, and law books. These, in read to the class that day t o symbolize the urge, the gathering twilight, developed an entrancing the struggle, the reward of Research. Upon the listening stu- phosphorescence, viewed by the chagrined investigators with dents it created a deep impression. To otherslof us who knew, profound alarm. That night, I am told, fearing spontaneous rather more intimately, the ideals, character, and life of the combustion, the youthful Arthur slipped downstairs for a weary, reader, these stanzas were profoundly moving. To us Kipling’s sleepless vigil. unforgettable lines were the epitome of the career of Arthur A. The immediate result of the accident, however, was not a Noyes himself. conflagration, but an edict-parental-which banished all future activities to the attic and woodshed of the Noyes and Mulliken Have I named one single river? Have I claimed one single acre? homes, respectively. In these newly founded laboratories the Have I kept one single nugget-((barring samples)? No, not I. Because my price was paid me ten times over by my Mrker. boys worked through all the experiments in Eliot and Storer’s But you wouldn’t understand it. You go up and occupv. texts on chemistry and on qualitative analysis. Upon graduating from the high school, Noyes, desirous of * * * * * * entering M. I. T., but finding himself with insufficient funds, Among the venturesome pioneers who settled, in the year decided to attempt the freshman work a t home. This he ac1635, the little town of Newbury on the Massachusetts shore complished, conscientiously and successfully, mastering alone were two brothers of the Noyes family name. The harbor site all the subjects of the first year except drawing. Not only did he a t the mouth of the Merrimac River was later known as New- enter the sophomore class, with the aid of the Wheelwright scholburyport. It was here some two hundred and thirty years later arship established for Newburyport students, but, characteristithat Amos Noyes married Anna Page Andrews of Salem. From cally, he entered it with high standing. these two sturdy ancestral lines Arthur Noyes has inherited his According to his own modest account, Noyes was not a brilliant New England common sense, ingenuity, tenacity of purpose, student a t Technology, and never became skilful in analytical fairness, and courage. manipulation, though he “wasted” much time over it. During The father was an able lawyer with a local reputation as an his senior year, a great interest in organic chemistry having been absent-minded scholar and philosopher. Not too absent-minded, aroused by the lectures of L. N. Norton, he started research however, to have evinced a n interest in the education of his son, on the action of heat on ethylene. After graduating in 1886 whom he himself instructed in Latin, chess, swimming, rowing, with the S.B. degree, he continued this organic chemical research and sailing, accomplishments in which Arthur Noyes today takes to receive in the following year the M.S. degree in chemistry. a just pride. The mother was by nature sociable and hospit- A t this time he was appointed assistant in analytical chemistry, able, and keenly interested in beauty and the arts. Being very and was given full charge of a class of about forty in qualitative much younger than her husband, she became the close companion analysis. The close friendship which he formed with two promof Arthur, her eldest son. After the age of eight, the boy went ising students, George E. Hale and Harry M. Goodwin, is perto public schools, carried morning papers, built office fires t o haps to him the most important event of this strenuous first year earn money, took a healthy interest in railroads, conductors, of teaching. cabooses, engineers, and birds’ eggs. But even in these early The next year Noyes went to Leipzig and started organic activities his efforts were not haphazard. “A voice as ba{ as chemical research with Wislicenus. Later, inspired by Ostwald, Conscience” whispered that behind railroads there was a System, he made the far-reaching decision to concentrate his activities behind birds’ eggs, a Science. He sought and obtained an in the field of physical chemistry. During the progress of this official license from the Boston Museum of Natural History. new research he became intimately associated with Ostwald, He formed a debating society, which he says was of the greatest Nernst, LeBlanc, and Beckmann. value to him, questions of a political and social nature being the On receiving the Ph.D. degree in 1890, he returned to M. I. T., subjects of discussion. and for a decade was actively engaged in teaching analytical, His first interest in science was developed by the study of organic, and physical chemistry. During this period he prephysical geography and physics, but it remained for Oliver pared and published the first edition of his well-known work on ILL a voice, as bad as Conscience, rang interminable changes On one everlasting Whisper day and night ?epeated-So: “Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look tehind the Ranges“Something lost behind the Ranges. Lostland waiting for sou. Gol”
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qualitative analysis, and carried out with his students many catch the spirit of this gentle, retiring man, albeit a born leader, researches relating to the ionic theory of electrolytes. He also and, in our own various ways, t o profit by it. initiated an extensive investigation which, after many years, That this intangible spirit of Noyes permeated the whole led to the publication (with W. C. Bray) of the scheme of qualita- laboratory is evidenced by the extraordinarily large number of tive analysis for the rare elements. Noyes thereby established men-latterly leaders of science in America-who came in conan enviable reputation for himself, not only in this country, but tact with him a t an early period of their own development. By also abroad. way of illustration I might name W. R. Whitney, W. D. Coolidge, M y first personal introduction to Noyes was in the year 1898. H. M. Goodwin, G. N. Lewis, W. C. Bray, C. S Hudson, Yogoro He and W. R. Whitney, both my teachers a t Technology, had Kato, C. A. Kraus. K. G. Falk, R. C. Tolman, W. D. Harkins, been on a bicycle trip, and by chance, after checking their E. W. Washburn, R. B. Sosman, John Johnston, F. G. Keyes. “wheels” (permissible in those unhurried days of the gay nine- and there are many others of this and later periods of his life. About 1904-5 Technology circlb were stirred by the proties), boarded my train for Boston. Being brought up in the South, I was intimidated by the smoke Screen of New England posal of a merger with Harvard. Many viewed such a step with reserve which Noyes threw out, but on closer contact I learned alarm as a definite trend away from the conception of the int o realize what genuine friendliness this traditional demeanor stitute by its founder, that great educator Wm. B. Rogers. A t cloaked. His favorite method of becoming acquainted with a meetings of the faculty Noyes actively opposed the merger, and student, I soon discovered, was t o proffer an invitation for a expressed his own views on education more fully in an article tramp or a bicycle trip t o the open country, a minor exploration published in the Technology h n U (1905), entitled “The Ideals which usually developed into a sort of traveling research con- of the Institute.” ference. Such sociable jaunts with his most promising students It was consequently no great surprise to his friends when often synchronized with periods when Noyes’ own mind was Noyes was invited to become acting president of Technology occupied with some particular problem or new idea. He would in 1907, a very critical time in its history. The acceptance of then think aloud, so t o speak, and then solicit advice or criticism. this responsibility and honor entailed t o one of his temperament Frequently these “thoughts” would later appear more definitely and mode of life serious sacrifice and real hardship. Such formulated in print, or would lead t o some new and important a position necessitated constant contact with an outside world line of investigation. which he had hitherto purposely shunned. But he gladly acRecently C. G. Abbot, in an address t o Technology students, cepted this important duty until two years later Richard C. paid a graceful tribute to Noyes and t o his practice of encourag- MacLaurin, a man of like ideals, was chosen as his successor. ing the honors student. He told of a time in his own career when When Noyes again took up the directorship of the research both engineering and science had lured him with the odds in favor laboratory, pressure of adqinistrative work prevented in some of engineering. Noyes, who discerned the possibilities of young degree the former close intimacy with his staff. Vacation periAbbot as a scientist (although modesty prevented the speaker ods, however, were frequently spent in travel with some honors from making this point), invited him t o dine at a n unrecalled student or associate, but always with some definite purpose. In Boston restaurant, and was quoted as follows: “Mr. Abbot, this way he found time t o write up with me for publication the if you are interested in molecules you ought t o study physics, course in chemical principles which had been evolved over a long not engineering.” period of years at Technology. The minutes of similar meetings between Noyes and Whitney When the “voice as bad as Conscience” again called, it came, are not recorded, but it is a matter of common knowledge that not as a whisper, but as a summons, and literally from a “land I n building up the staff of these two scientists developed (1896-98) and put in operation a t behind the Ranges”-California, Jamestown, N. Y., a profitable process for the recovery of alcohol the great Mt. Wilson Observatory, George E. Hale had foreseen and ether vapors lost hitherto in the manufacture of photo- the need of a great educational institution in this new and rapidly graphic films. Likewise, that soon thereafter Noyes established developing section of the country. He had with characteristic the first pure-science research laboratory a t M. I. T., and Whitney acumen and enthusiasm set about the transformation of the was called, by the General Electric Company, t o h y the founda- already flourishing Throop College in Pasadena. Hale’s policy tions of the great industrial research laboratory a t Schenectady. has always been first to select the best man available for a posiNoyes not only established in 1903 this Research Laboratory of tion, and then to refuse t o take no as an answer. Moreover, Physical Chemistry, but for seventeen years he personally con- he has many subtle ways of accomplishing his ends, and doubtless would have succeeded (even without the coaperation of tributed half the expense of its current maintenance. CLIMATE) in securing first Noyes, then Millikan, and those who During the first years of his directorship, Noyes maintained the same intimacy with the laboratory group which he had, pre- have followed t o help build up the now well-known California viously maintained with his individual research students. This Institute of Technology. For a while Noyes divided his activities between M. I. T. and intercourse was considerably furthered by the purchase of a sizable, seaworthy yawl, immediately rechristened “The Ex- C I. T., but a t the end of the war, after his obligations to the plorer.” During the summer selected groups from the laboratory Nitrate Division of the National Research Council were fulfilled, were invited t o explore the myriad bays and inlets of the Maine he made what must have been a painful decision to sever concoast from Portland t o Eastport. That we once sailed into Bar nection permanently with his alma mater and to accept the direcHarbor flying the signal of distress (unwittingly hoisted by E. W. torship of the Gates Chemical Laboratory in Pasadena. He saw Washburn) was one of many similar incidents which furnished in this new institute a great opportunity to put into effect some abundant material for good-natured chaff at our winter reunions. of his cherished ideals of education. Here he has not only succeeded in building up a strong graduIt was on these cruises that we became acquainted with Noyes’ real personality, which he so effectively hides from the outside ate‘department, but has exerted considerable iduence in deterworld. We learned of his almost passionate fondness for poetry mining the general educational policies. He has made in this which he would recite from memory by the hour with intonation congenial environment the opportunity to continue on a large and diction never t o be forgotten. We learned also that the scale his earlier personal practice of giving the honors student day’s work with him habitually started at four in the morning preferential treatment. At C. I. T. students of the j d o r year and ended at eight in the evening; and we commenced to com- who have qualified in the honors group compete among themprehend that infinite capacity for taking pains, which is, per- selves for travel prize scholarships, at least two awards being haps, the keynote of his success. But more than all we began to made each year. The winners, selected on a basis of leadership
April, 1931
INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERIIYG CHEMISTRY
as well as scholastic standing, are granted leave of absence at the beginning of the spring term and provided with funds for travel in Europe. On their return in the fall they publicly give an account of their experiences. If Noyes feels any pangs of homesickness on this alien soil, he represses them successfully. In Pasadena he will, beaming proudly, exhibit his tropical substitutes for apple trees and zinnias. Furthermore, he will extol their excellencies with all the gusto of a native son. It is, however, significant that he zever seems so happy as when at Corona del Mar-summer home and winter retreat for creative thinking. Here, overlooking the
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lovely, sunny harbor of Balboa filled with pleasure craft (and rumrunners?), he has purchased a veritable granite castle. Immediately adjoining i t is the newly established Kerckhoff Marine Laboratory of C. I. T., in which, by special permission of the Department of Biology, he has fitted up an analytical laboratory for honors students in chemistry to carry out special research problems. Old Newburyport to new Balboa. Atlantic to Pacific Ocean. Attic to Marine Laboratory. Only Sam Mul!iken is needed t o complete the cycle. MILES S SHERRILL
NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE Our Engineer President The editor of our esteemed contemporary, Science, saw fit to admit t o the pages of the issue for January 16, 1931, an anonymous criticism of the President of the United States and his relation to science under the heading, “An Engineer in Authority.” We consider it unfortunate that, if an anonymous communication from some disgruntled soul who apparently failed to obtain some coveted appointment should have been published a t all, the same issue might not have carried a few statements to enable those who may read to form their own conclusions. Unfortunately, criticism always travels farther and faster than commendatory statements, and whatever we or any others, even Science itself, may now publish, it is quite unlikely that it will receive the same attention as the sharp criticism to which we refer. This has already been reprinted in other widely read periodicals. What was said, if it deserved the light of day, could easily have waited until some one could have presented a few facts. The man who accomplishes most for science is not necessarily he who works with microscope, spectroscope, test tube, geologist’s hammer, or statistician’s curve. Many executives are, in effect, scene shifters and stage managers, who contribute most t o the advance of science through their ability to maintain conditions under which others shall be fitted for their tasks, can do their best work, and accomplish most. Presidential appointments, often criticized by individuals, are made with peculiar requirements of a particular task in mind, and those not in possession of all the facts are not in a position to criticize the choice. It seems unnecessary to set forth in detail here the early work of Herbert Hoover. The anonymous writer does not question his record as an engineer prior to his entrance into the Department of Commerce, but of his attitude since that time he says: I t is, however, said that Mr. Hoover, as a member of the cabinets of Mr. Harding and Mr. Coolidge, did not support the scientific work under his charge, and there seems to be no evidence since he has climbed to the Presidency that he realizes the dependence of our civilization on scientific research and its applications. As Secretary of Commerce Mr. Hoover was administrative head of one of the two departments which maintain those relations with industry affording the greatest opportunity for constructive research; the other is the Department of Ag-riculture. One need only take time to familiarize himself with what has been accomplished in the department for which Mr. Hoover was responsible, to learn of his sympathetic encouragement to the scientific man, of his activities in obtaining funds for expansion, of his support of special programs of research and investigation, to say nothing of what was accomplished in convincing American industry that in the Department of Com-
merce, if in no other, the business man had an understanding friend a t the Nation’s Capital. Lest there be any misunderstanding, let it be said that it is the part of the executive to administer. He must delegate responsibility and authority to bureau chiefs, but work under these chiefs cannot progress without his sanction, and those who have worked with Herbert Hoover know that his approval of a project follows only after understanding and acquaintance with that project. We hold it fair to argue, therefore, that certain researches already under way when he came to the Department of Commerce could continue with new support only with his approval and help. Shortly after becoming Secretary of Commerce, in March, 1921, Herbert Hoover took a leading part in movements which resulted in the creation of the Federal Specifications Board, the Division of Simplified Practice, the Division of Building and Housing, the Division of Specifications, the Federal Specifications Board, the Industrial Standardization Board, and the National Conference on City and Highway Safety. He was also very active as the first president of American Engineering Council, one report of which, on “Waste in Industry,” was directly due to his inspiration. This report has had a wide circulation in book form, and has been translated into many languages. Under the auspices of the Division of Simplified Practice there have been carried to successful completion programs initiated by the interested industries involving, after research, the elimination of a great number of unnecessary varieties in sizes, dimensions, models, and types of over one hundred commodities. This work continues, and industry attributes to these waste-elimination programs savings running into hundreds of millions of dollars. The Division of Building and Housing cooperated closely with Better Homes in America, and has continued to work with business, technical, and commercial groups to encourage improvement in standards for building construction, to modernize building codes, to facilitate city planning and zoning, and to help distribute building activity throughout the year. The Division of Specifications has worked with public purchasing agents and others to provide an encyclopedia covering the entire field of standards, specifications, simplifications, and tests, which may be determined as the best adapted for public purchases. Two of the ten volumes of this encyclopedia have been issued, and comprise lists of testing laboratories and college research laboratories, as well as details concerning some five thousand manufacturers willing to supply commodities guaranteed by them to comply with the requirements of more than three hundred nationally recognized specifications and standards. This division has also issued an Annual Directory of Commodity Specifications.
