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INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEIWISTRY
Vol. 15, No. 6
AMERICAN CONTEMPORARIES Charles Edward Munroe
I t is only the favored few who are guests of honor a t a Cosmos dinner. Munroe has had that great honor. As a successful It was mY good fortune to know Charles Edward ML1nroe pedagog he was praised on that occasion in a poem written by early in my scientific career. When 1went to Harvard UniverHerbert Putnam, Librarian of Congress: sity in the autumn of 1872 to take a special course in chemistry, The proudest of the laurels a pedagog can show, I first met him. I thought he was one of Is a pupil whom his birch has taught the way the older professors when I first saw him, t h a t he should go, for his hair was already white. I was surAnd the program of a dinner in honor of Munroe prised, on getting better acquainted with Would not suffice unless it told a thing or two we know him, to learn that he was nearly five years Of a certain lad he had in hand some forty younger than I. Fortunately, a man is years ago. not as old as his hair looks, and Dr. MunIf all the sayings in a Cosmos Club roe was a boy when I met him; he has remained a boy ever since, and will continue group, of which Munroe was a member, could have been recorded, Boswell would to live a boy and die a boy. lose his vogue and Munroe would drive Dr.’ Among my teachers a t Harvard, none Johnson to cover. These Cosmos “convermade so continued and lasting an impressations” are famous, and are attractive sion upon me as Munroe. He taught even to the few mortals who find it imposme quantitative analysis, but he taught sible to become members. In one instance me a lot of things besides that. One of a group of philosophers had protracted the things I learned from him was that a their discussion t o an early hour approachHarvard professor was a human being and ing one A . M . At such a time, evidences of endowed with all the rights and privileges both wit and wisdom are likely to have of the human animal. I had always asapproached an asymptotic propinquity to sociated a Harvard professor with the ina vanishing quantity. At that moment a habitants of Olympus, even though I found stranger, slightly confused by having imCouvtery “ T h e Explosives Engineer” it difficult to think of a bean and a cod C H A R L E S EDWARD MUNROS bibed somewhat freely what is now formetamorphosed into nectar and theobidden fruit, in some manner broke into the broma. I was certain he dwelt in an ensacred precincts. Approaching the table where the learned party vironment of supreme serenity, such as could only be secured a t a temperature of absolute zero. Imagine my astonishment and was sitting, he asked, with proverbial difficulty of enunciation: “Excuse me, gentlemen, is this (hic) the Cos (hic) mos Club?” delight, therefore, when I first clasped young Munroe’s hand to To which an affirmative answer was given. Conversation was find it warm and responsive. I still think he must have been slow and dull as the bottoms of the glasses became visible and the first Hnrvard teacher who ever fraternized with his pupils, the stumps of the cigars burned out. the Uralt forbear of that now long line of humans developed to After a few moments the stranger spoke again: “Beg pardon, the highest degree in Dean Briggs. I am sure, therefore, that but did I (hic) understand (hic) you to say this is the (hic) when I left Cambridge and went to Lafayette to teach the young Cosmos Club?” To which again an affirmative answer was Purdue idea how to shoot in the new agricultural hothouse, I should not have been blamed for transgressing the ancient col- given. Steadying himself for a final effort, the dazed visitor exclaimed: “Then why (hic) in hell don’t you (hic) scintillate?” lege traditions when I donned a uniform and became pitcher It is said that once when Thoreau was asked by a visitor for the firqt Purdue nine. The staid trustees of the new unifrom a distance if he had ever traveled much, he replied: “Yes, versity could not see it in that light. They had never known a great deal.” “Where?” continued his visitor. “In Concord,” Munroe. Thoreau replied. I soon discovered when I went to Cambridge Munroe is a forty-niner. He was discovered the same year that California was. That accounts for the estimation in which that young Munroe, like Thoreau, had traveled much in Camhe is held by his thousands of pupils-pure gold. Whether at bridge. He had made an occasional incursion to Boston, to Charlestown, and to Somerville. He had once, I believe, been as Harvard, where he taught three years and was known as “Munfar as Jamaica Plain. At the end of my stay in Cambridge, ny,” or a t Annapolis, where for twelve years he taught the middies I had become so well acquainted with my teacher that I invited the principles of chemistry, or a t Newport, where he toyed with death and made a comrade of TNT for six years, or a t George him to go with me, when I started home, as far as Niagara Falls. This was Munroe’s first view of the great world, as well as the Washington, as head professor of chemistry and dean of the Graduate School for twenty years, or as chief advisor of the great falls. We walked across the bridge into Canada and he United States on explosives during the German war, or as ad- bought a number of Indian relics, recently made in Buffalo, from a very charming saleswoman. His admiration for the enfranvisor on explosives in the Bureau of Mines up to the present time, chised sex has not diminished with advancing years. He spent a he has always been a teacher, a true democrat, although up to the enactment of the eighteenth amendment usually voting the Re- good part of the sum which he had set aside for this journey for these objets de vertu. A s we returned to the American side he publican ticket. was stopped by the revenue officer, and a sum was assessed His great works are not found among the hundred and more against his recently acquired antiquities which amounted to scientific papers he has published, nor in the dangerous researches moi-e than the original cost. Munroe has been a free trader he has made, but in the hearts and lives of the thousands he has ever since taught.
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INRUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHElMISTRY
June, 1923
Charles Edward Munroe is known to the scientific world through his fundamental researches on explosives. If one thinks, however, that he is versed only in the chemistry of explosives, he has only to begin a conversation with him on any of the great principles of chemistry to find out he is mistaken. He can talk as intelligently and learnedly in regard to the constitution of the atom as Soddy, Aston, Rutherford, or Harkins. He knows, I think, quite as much about relativity as Albert Einstein himself, although that, perhaps, is not praising him very highly.
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H e loves his country home, its gardens, its orchards, and its surroundings. Going back each day from his work in the Bureau of Mines, he indulges in agricultural and horticultural pursuits. His home is a typically beautiful cottage and his garden and orchards are well kept and his lawn is properly mowed. As he sits on his lawn sub tegminefugi, surrounded by his grandchildren, he presents the picture of a patriarch as noble and benignant as ever honored the homes of the chosen people of God. HARVEYW. WILEY
NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE Father of Leather Chemistry Felicitated May 6, 1923 Professor Henry Richardson Procter, Polwin, Newlyn, Cornwall, England. DEARPROFESSOR PROCTER: The Leather Division of the American Chemical Society extends to you its heartiest felicitations on this the occasion of your seventy-fifth birthday. In so doing, i t is mindful of the great debt which the leather industry owes you for laying the foundation upon which modern leather chemistry is building. May you be spared many more years t o continue the great work which has won recognition for you as “the father of leather chemistry.” Respectfully yours, LEATHER DIVISION,AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY (Signed)
JOHN ARTHURWILSON,Chairman CHAS.S. HOLLANDER, Vice Chairman ARTHURW . THOMAS,Secretary F. P. VEITCH,C . R. MCKEE, Members of Executive Committee
J. A. Wilson,
Polwin, Newlyn, Penzance Milwaukee, Wis DEARWILSON: Will you kindly convey to the Leather Division of the American Chemical Society my very sincere thanks for the kind congratulations which they have sent me on my seventy-fifth birthday? 1 think I may say without vanity that I have done my best for leather chemistry and that doing it has been a pleasure, but it is very nice to feel that it has won me friends on your side of the world and the letter will be a very welcome memorial of the friends who have signed it, but whom I fear I can hardly hope to meet personally unless they will come to visit me here. I look with great pleasure and interest on the work you and your friends are doing and, though I hope the Old Country will not drop out of the race, I feel that the future is with your younger nation. With very kind regards, not only to yourself, but to my colleagues of the American Chemical Society, I am yours very sincerely, (Signed) HENRYR . PROCTER
Supporting Foreign Publications Edilor of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry: I n res“Supporting Foreign Publications,” will state that I am extremely surprised t o see the narrow view entertained in this article. It has always been impressed upon me that science, as well as music, art, and literature, is international and belongs to the world a t large. If this is the case, the world must give its support. At the time when a year’s subscription cost an American 38 cents for the Berliner Berichte, I wrote to the Society calling its attention t o the fact that I could sell the periodicals here for more money as junk paper. Since then conditions have become worse due to the decline of the mark. We all paid our subscriptions to the Berichte cheerfully before the war, and must view the cost from our own standard and not from the European, for if we commercialize any of the benefits which we derive from the Berichte we will do so on a dollar and not a mark basis. Ten dollars is therefore not excessive. To my humble way of viewing matters, I wish to state that if science and scientific publications in central European countries are not to cease functioning, they will require money transfusion from the more favored countries, and those of us wlio have been born and reared in this land of plenty should not hesitate to support the scientists abroad, together with their publications. Let us be broader in our views than the people of hateinfested Europe and by precept and example lead them to broader and brighter fields. OTTO DIECKMANN CINCINNATI, OHIO M a y 11, 1923
Calendar of Meetings American Association of Cereal Chemists-9th Annual Convention, Sherman Hotel, Chicago, Ill., June 4 t o 9, 1923. American Leather Chemists Association-20th Annual Meeting, White Sulphur Springs, W. Va., June 7 to 9, 1923. National Fertilizer Association-30th Annual Convention, White Sulphur Springs, W. Va., week of June 11, 1923. American Institute of Chemical Engineers-Summer Meeting, Wilmington, Del., June 20 t o 23, 1923. American Society for Testing Materials-26th Annual Meeting, Atlantic City, N. J., week of June 26, 1923. American Chemical Society, 66th Meeting, Milwaukee, Wis., September 10 to 15, 1923.
Biochemistry Fellowships The Development and Use of Standards for Reagent The fellowship for research in the field of the biochemistry of Chemicals-Correction bread-making which has been supported by the Fleischmann In this article, published in the May issue of THIS JOURNAL, Company in the Division of Agricultural Biochemistry of the
page 529, thg statement should have been made that the J. T. Baker Chemical Company were the first American manufacturers to use labels with analyses on their reagent chemicals. W. D. COLLINS
University of Minnesota, is t o be continued. In addition, a new fellowship t o support research in the biochemistry of biscuit and cracker manufacture has recently been founded by A. P. Strietmann of the Strietmann Biscuit Co., Cincinnati, Ohio.
