22 74 92 23 87 54 70 39 30 40
The use of type acids for each group of the periodic table enables the student to familiarize himself with the ortho, meta, and pyro acids, and to develop the ability to write formulas for salts. . .. . ATOMIC WEIGHTSAND
a 7 3 5 8 5 2 2 5 3 7 2 2 4 X
1 7 6
+
5 1 X X X 7 X 3 4 1 4 8
X 1 X
a 7
t
f 8
X 4 1 X 2 7 7
Actinium Mahamine Aluminum Antimony Argon Arsenic Barivm Beryllium Bi.muth Boron Bromine Cadmium Calcium Carbon cerium Cerium Chlorine Chmmium Cobalt Columbium capper Dyaprodum Erbium Euradum Fluorine Gadolinium Gallium Germanium Gald Hafnium Helium Holmium Hydrogen Illinium mium lodine Iridium Iron Krypton Lanthanum Lead Lithium 1.uteeium Magnesium Mangnaese Mnsurium
2
Mercury
6 X 8
i
Molybdenum Nmdymium Neon Nickel Nitrogen osmium
6
oxygen
ff
Pzlladium Phosphor". Platioum Polonium Potassium Prareodymium Pmtoactinum Radium Radon Rhenium Rhodium Rubidium Ruthenium samarium Scandium Selenium Silicon Silver Sodivm strontium Sulfur Tantalum Tellurium Terbium Thallium Thorium Thulium Tin
I 5
5
t
6 1 X 5 2 8 7
I
1
I
X 3 6 4 1 1 2 6 5
6 X 3 4 X 4
SYMBOLS
X -Rare
I
4 6 6 5 1 8
Titanium Tungsten Uranium Vanadium Virginivm Xenon Ytterbium yttrium
X 3 2 4
Zinc Zirconium
earths
- lmegular
Typ. Acids Groups 2-7
"PERSONNEL PLAC~MENTVIEWS ON CHEMICAL EDUCATION" To the Editor
DEARSIR: I was very much surprised to find in an article in your March, 1938, issue, which was entitled "Personnel Placement Views on Chemical Education," by Forrest A. Anderson, the following statement. "As a by-product of the recent Depression, several hundred poorly trained chemists and chemical engineers have walked the streets of the various metropolitan areas in search of positions in laboratories or plants. These comprise the people with one or two years of college chemistry, some being crippled in one way or another, and some hard of hearing. Many of the foreign-born had difficulty with speech, and others, even with foreign names, were handicapped. In the temporary placement of such people in the chemical industries;the man and his lack of technic, the college that trained him, and the industry that tries to use his services, are all poorly served." This statement, to my mind and experience, is a complete misstatement of the current state of affairs with regard to the employment of chemists in industry, and a consaous or unconscious attempt to justify the deplorable condition in which the young chemist finds himself today. I would like to state, before I analyze the statement of Mr. Anderson, who I am and what education I have, experience, and so forth, so that the readers of this letter may understand upon what personal basis I write. I am a young man, twenty-three years of age, a graduate of New York University College of Arts and Pure Science, with a BSc., 1936, a major in chemistry, and a minor in physics, mathematics, and German. I have had a thorough training in all basic chemistry, that is, in inorganic, analytical organic and physical, as well as advanced courses in organic synthesis, physical chemistry, mathematics, and physics. My experience in the industry is at present limited to six
months in a paint laboratory where I was employed as a laboratory helper or rather Assistant Chemist, for which I received the munificent sum of $75 per month. Since losing this position I have been unable to find another with the exception of a "volunteer" one in a hospital which, because of financial reasons, I was unable to keep. Further, I am writing as one of those "(poorly?) trained chemists and chemical engineersu-who have been unable to find legitimate positions as chemists in industry. Now let me proceed to the statement of Mr. Anderson. According to Mr. Anderson these poorly trained people comprise either people who have had only one or two years of chemistry, have no degrees from recognized institutions, are either partly deaf, foreign born, foreign named, etc. As regards the training of these unemployed chemists, I know, and my friends as well, numerous recent graduates in chemistry from our finest colleges and universities who have training and degrees in chemistry and engineering who are unable to obtain jobs in industry which are in any way connected with their training and commensurate with their ability. Many of these men are members of Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, etc. And as regards to their being crippled, etc., this is sheer nonsense. Firstly, because any man with a serious physical defect could never get through the average undergraduate chemistry course, and if he did it would be indicative of extraordinary talent and ability, and such a man would deserve a position just as much as a physically normal person. But Mr. Anderson knows just as well as I do that practically all these unemployed chemists and engineers are young, strong, and healthy, and upright Americans who are both willing A N D A B L E to work, but for whom American industry at present can find no opening. Further in regard to the foreign-born and FOREIGN NAMED. I t is rather amusing to note in the American chemical industry there are a t present numerous chemists of all nationalities, German, French, Norwegian, Italian, etc., who hold leading positions in our American chemical profession, and apparently their foreign-born origin was no drawback to their obtaining these positions. As to foreign names, what constitutes an American as against a foreign name? Are Roosevelt, La Guardia, Johnson, Ford, Jacques Loeb,
Taylor, O'Reilly, American or foreign names? I think that when the author of the above-quoted statement says FOREIGN, he really means people who are JEWISH and to a lesser degree perhaps CATHOLIC and NEGRO people. Mr. Anderson's entire statement in regard to the what he calls foreign-born and foreign named has an underlying note of social, racial, and religious chauvinism. This chauvinism often manifests itself in newspaper advertisements of positions for chemists with statements such as: Christians Only, Anglo-Saxon, etc. In conclusion, I would like to state that Mr. Anderson's article, well meaning as i t may have been, has not contributed anything really constructive to the solution of placing young chemists in the chemical industry. Rather, I feel that certain statements which he has made and which I have endeavored to point out in this letter, tend to act a barrier against a really intelligent and practical solution of this problem. RICHARD A. LYON 1307 B o s c o s ~AVENUE ~ NEW YORKCITY
as
