VALUES FRANCIS
J.
CURTIS,
Vice President, Monsanto Chemical Co., St. Louis, Mo.
First p r e s e n t e d i n L o n d o n last J u l y as t h e J u b i l e e Memorial Lecture before t h e S o c i e t y of C h e m i c a l I n d u s t r y , t h i s address, w e i g h i n g m a t e r i a l a g a i n s t m o r a l v a l u e s , i s here presented w i t h t h e permission of T . W. J o n e s , editor of Chemistry and Industry, p u b l i c a t i o n o f the Society of Chemical I n d u s t r y IYXAN is greater than the sum of his parts. Since the 18th century an increasingly large fraction of the western world, and a particularly vocal one, has disbelieved this statement. We have been listening so long to those who have lost faith and are vociferous about it, that we cannot hear those who have retained it. In a modern world built for propaganda the loud and frequent talker has an advantage beyond his importance. Who was it who said that if a lie is big enough and told often enough everyone will believe it? The disbelief in what we may call the soul has had tremendous consequences. On the one hand there is the reasoning which says that if only the here and the now exist, and all else is a blank, one should get what one can, with no regard for means—that is, we have a return to the law of the jungle. On the other hand, others reason from the same premise that if we give a man enough material things and comforts, he will be happy and content. From one we have the burgeoning of rugged individualism during the 19th and early 20th centuries, the piracy period, which came to an end after World War I. From the other we have the defeatist solution of collectivism in various forms, a device of the qualitative rather than the quantitative mind, a triumph of the wishbone over the backbone. Both solutions are truly reactionary; both tie into the fundamental thesis of the complete efficacy of the satisfaction of material wants, the first for himself alone and the second for a collective self of no different mental attitude. Both are reactionary because they revert to systems worn out in the early history of the human race, and the second leads inevitably to despotism, a collective emperor being perhaps vvorse than an individual one. What can we do, and particularly what can we chemists and chemical engineers do, in our particular segment of life, to counteract these reactionary tendencies? How can we strike an all-around balance·? Values in Living We can re-create in ourselves the belief in man's soul and its all-importance. Many will be skeptical of this statement and its possibilities. I remember once having a book on calculus which had a very illuminating motto on the flyleaf, "What one fool has done, another can do. ,f V O L U M E
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*
Self-hypnosis and the other smear words do not worry me at all. Recognition of the evil of materialism is the first step. Such a re-creation of faith will give a. purpose to what we do and with a purpose, direction. That purpose is to strive that every man may live the fullest life of which he is capable, not only on the material side, but also on the mental and spiritual. At one jump we broaden the horizon of the scientist to infinity. We recognize other criteria of knowledge than the exactly measurable and begin to preach the expansion of the lagging social sciences and of forgotten religion. We too become whole and in so doing make it more likely that we will become successful in accomplishing even our p/esent limited objectives of more and better things for more but not better people. By recognizing other criteria of truth than the material, we avoid the trap of authoritarianism, where every man must think alike and live alike. As a matter of real fact, no man should be forced to have possessions; freedom consists in not having as well as having. The scientist cannot continue to live in a vacuum. Neither he nor anyone else can dissociate himself from social responsibility for his actions, in education, research, manufacturing, or politics. Values in Education The greatest fault of our present educational system is that it stops. Ninety-nine people out of a 100 think that it consists of "schools, colleges, and universities. The prime job of these, however, is to create the desire to know and to show how to go about learning. This well accomplished, education will never stop. Most universities are so busy trying to teach students how to make a living that the latter, when they find they can make a living, think that they are educated also and cease all further effort in this direction. Few universities get beyond stuffing the mind to training the soul. Much is made of the fact that since we cannot agree in matters of religion, it must bee eliminated from education. This is straight escapism. We do not agree on economics, government, or literature, or many other subjects, yet all these will be found in the curricula of any university worthy of the name. We in the United States have swung far from the free elective system of the 19th OCTOBER
6,
1947
century, which was definitely a product of the rugged individualism, of its time. In this case the student caine to the university very much as to a cafeteria and picked off the shelf those things which seemed to please him without any regard to their relationships or much to their relative values. Dean Briggs of Harvard used to tell a story particularly apropos of this system. It seems a freshman came to him and told him t h a t he had worked out an ideal course. The dean had been studying education all his life and was naturally interested in what an ideal course could be; whereupon the freshman informed him that he took nothing which came before 10 o'clock in the morning or up more than one flight of stairs. Many of our colleges are now devising systems of concentration and distribution to steer between the Scylla of eclecticism and the Charybdis of straight vocational training Survey courses are being developed of other fields of knowledge than that of the major specialties, since it is being recognized that those introductory courses developed for men who are to specialize in the subject are not a t all suitable for those for whom the field is of cultural interest only. This.wind is blowing. Universities should set up systems of measuring their products as does industry. Few of us in the chemical industry would operate a plant without a control laboratory and a checkup on whether the product meets the specifications. The specifications for chemists and chemical engineers have time depth. It is not what the man knows or is at the moment he leaves the university, but what ho becomes in the years following as a result of his university training. The problem of measurement of the university's product is harder than t h a t of the chemical manufacturer, but it is not impossible. As it stands now there is no fundamental check-up on the processes of education as there is on the processes of manufacture. It is a matter of opinion whether visual aids for college education are valuable or worthless. It is a matter of opinion whether the lecture system is merely a hangover from the time when few could read and whether its passive injections are as efficacious as some other method of passing the time. In the chemical industry we feel t h a t if a process has been running 10 years it is time to take a 2901
critical look at it. Unless there is a check back on the whole product and not on a few conspicuous successes, the process of education cannot be critically reviewed. We in this group are interested primarily in chemists and chemical engineers. Frontiers in these fields have spread so far and so widely that it is impossible for the students to cover everything in the allotted time of four years for the B.S. degree or even seven years for the Ph.D. I a m appalled at the amount the young graduate of today is expected to know. and thankful that I chose a birth date more in consonance with m}r powers. Shall we have to extend the time for the bachelor's degree to five years instead of four? Some universities are so doing in the United States. The handicaps for those of limited means are only too obvious. Our experience with accelerated courses during the recent war period has turned away from this expedient. The human plant must have time to grow. Hence we have the cry of the industrialists that the universities should stick to the fundamentals. I would go further and say to stick to fundamentals in the physical sciences so t.hat there will be time for some basic studies in social sciences and religion. I am quite aware of the fact that there is a tendency among the practitioners of the exact sciences to decry the activities of their social confreres who cannot use the beaker and the pilot plant. Yet for a moment just suppose that the social sciences together, and it could not be done by one of them, could really tell us when the cycles of depression and boom were to come upon us. Instead of rushing the construction of new plants at the height of the boom as we have been doing in America recently, thereby competing for already scarce labor and materials and making them scarcer, and possibly arriving at the finished state of the plant when the output is no longer desired, we would start our construction when the curve had turned up from the bot torn and have our installations ready when the demand had arrâved. In so doing we would cut off the tops and shorten the bottoms of the curves and be really able to go a long way toward smoothing them out. AVhat we lack is knowledge and it is no more foolish to look for that knowledge than the destruction of the atom would have seemed to a physicist of the midnineteenth century. T h e corollary of all this is that if the college or university is to stick to fundamentals, then somebody must train in the details, and that somebody obviously is industry. At present, with some shining exceptions, most of the training given in industry is of the unconscious type. That is, the man is assigned to work for an older chemist or chemical engineer who is supposed to tell him all about the company's organization, activities, policies, to shift him from the academic viewpoint to the industrial, and to teach him to be a satisfactory industrial chemist. Very rarely 2902
has this older man ever had any training in teaching and often he is oblivious of the necessity of doing any of the things that I have mentioned. Most of us recognize that there is a certain flat place in the curve of a man's development at the time he enters industry. Our problem is to eliminate this flat place or at least to minimize it. During the wrar a great deal has been done in developing methods of teaching which permit learning to progress at a much faster rate than in the conventional college or university. I am not at all certain that it would be advisable to apply these quick methods to the college or university because there character formaation is as important as the stuffing of the mind. However, by the time the graduate is working in industry, probably most of his character is already formed and there can be no grave objection to the use of the most modern methods of inserting information. Such training must start with the trainers, those older men now used in the unconscious system. They must be imbued with the importance to themselves of completing the education of their juniors. There is more altruism in men than we think, but it needs rousing. This on-thejob training should be supplemented by class instruction to fill in the details peculiar to the job which the university can no longer be expected to do. I t will be stated that such training courses are an intolerable financial drag on industry. While it is still largely a matter of faith, I do not believe this is so. Because of the improvement in quality and output of the man's work, I believe that training courses will eventually be shown to pay for themselves many times.
After education, what? In the United States chemical industry the chemist and chemical engineer have permeated practically every phase of the business within the last 25 years. For obvious reasons research laboratories have always been composed of technical men, but during my own lifetime the operation of chemical plants has passed practically entirely into the hands of trained chemists and chemical engineers. Chemical operations have become more a n d more technical, requiring more and more knowledge and it is becoming increasingly difficult for men to rise from the ranks. This is extremely unfortunate since there are many men of real ability who were not lucky enough to have obtained a technical education, and plans should be developed by industry for them to do so, at least in a sufficient degree so that they may be able to take advantage of their inherent abilities. Such methods might take the form of actual courses, given by the technical men in the plant; by assistance in attending night schools where available; or by a system of loans for college education. Brains are not distributed in proportion to pocketbooks. In the last few years we have seen a great extension of the field of the chemist and chemical engineer into sales, at first in the form of technical service and then concerned with sales development where new uses had t o be worked out with customers, and now into the actual selling itself. The diversion of large numbers of chemists and chemical engineers into the sales field has raised the question in many minds as to whether the conventional technical societies are broadening their activities as fast as the profession. A
Francis I. Curtis xV ΛΊΑΝ of dynamic personality, Francis J. Curtis has the rare combina tion of technical knowledge and an understanding of human nature. In the Monsanto Chemical Co. he holds the positions of vice president, in charge of long range programs and technical personnel secretary of the finance com mittee, and secretary of the executive committee. Mr. Curtis was with Merrimac Chemical Co. in the sales de partment when the company was taken over by Monsanto in 1929. Outside of his work in industry, Mr. Curtis has done much to advance the chemical profession. He is the immediate past chairman of the AMER ICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY'S Division of
Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, past-chairman of the American section of the Society of Chemical Industry, and is a director of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
CHEMICAL
During the spring of 1945 Mr. Curtis was a member of the group of technical investigators sent to Germany by the Chemical Warfare Service of the United States Army. His reports were models of accuracy. While chairman of the Committee on Junior Activities of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Cur tis gathered about him a group of young chemists and chemical engineers and made a study of salaries and work ing conditions. Then he proceeded to place in operation in his own company many of the suggestions made by his younger associates. Francis Curtis was born in Cam bridge, Mass., and educated at Cam bridge Latin School and Harvard University where he received the bach elor of arts degree in chemistry in 1915. For recreation, he enjoys making crayon sketches and playing the piano.
AND
ENGINEERING
NEWS
recent editorial in one of the publications of t h e
AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY
has
suggested the possible necessity of t h e formation of a division of chemical marketing t o cover technical work on the distribution side of the industry. Values
in
Research
In spite of these extensions of the activities of chemists and chemical engineers in the last 25 to 30 years, research remains the heart of the chemical industry. W h a t ever t h e reasons m a y be, the facts seem to show t h a t research in England is more fundamental, more interested in " w h y " t h a n in America which appears more interested in * w h a t . " I t was not t o be expected t h a t t h e fledgling colonies or states, immersed in a struggle to s u b due a continent, could produce a Boyle, a D a l ton, or a Faraday. Then when the time came t o develop technical industries, there was a wealth of fundam e n t a l principles t o apply which h a d been developed in other countries. Hence the t u r n of the American efforts so much t o practical applications. I t is well known t h a t t h e typical American inventions such as telephone, telegraph, phonograph, electric light, and so forth, are applications of previously known fundamental principles, whereas in England there has been created a knowledge of such things as the neutron, radar, penicillin, a n d atom splitting. These are only trends, and examples of good work in both fields can be shown on both sides of the Atlantic, but I think there can be little criticism of the s t a t e ment t h a t the chemical engineer vis-à-vis t h e chemist stands higher on the west side of t h e Atlantic Ocean than on the east. This has worked out very well for America as long as there was a great fund of theoretical knowledge a v a c h i e — a great a n d modern chemical industry has been built. I n m y opinion England would do well t o concentrate on expanding chemical engineering in all its phases, in research, m a n u facture, design, and sales, t o take advantage in the highest degree of the research knowledge it itself is creating. We in the United States, on the other hand, must re-emphasize fundamental research and avoid unbalanced research programs. T h e nation is very much aware of this. Perhaps we need more chemists a n d fewer engineers. We must study very carefully what conditions made it possible for English, French, and other European scientists t o perform so much original creative work. Such conditions can never be exactly transferred but a knowledge of t h e m will a t least point out t h e road. From a broader standpoint, research in t h e physical science has hogged t h e manger. A very large fraction of t h e billion dollars being spent by the United S t a t e s Government on research is in t h e field of the physical sciences and engineering, and largely on immediate application problems. Social sciences are still
VOLUME
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NO.
i n the phlogiston stage. They will never b e as exact as t h e physical, but can be more exact t h a n now. We have visualized above t h e consequences of real abili t y to predict business cycles. We have h a d a n interesting example recently in t h e United S t a t e s of a failure in application of the theory t h a t taxes should be high in boom times a n d as soon as the boom began t o let up should be decreased, because n o one could say whether or not the rise h a d ceased. Since a n d as long as it is only a m a t t e r of opinion, under no circumstances will politicians in power admit a depression, u n t i l i t is so obvious t h a t even t h e y c a n see it. In a n o t h e r field, by t h e use of psychology possibly really good aptitude testing c a n be developed. There are many systems, b u t no trustworthy one. I t is just a s important not t o put a man in a job requiring less than his full intelligence a s the more usually considered reverse. Fateful decisions are made by young men on flimsy bases, decisions on which their whole lives depend. T h e world suffers from t h e u n a d a p t e d as from all other inefficiency. Because of the lack of any real knowledge of how t o distribute wealth, we have t h e slam b a n g systems of fascism and communism, both arrived at b y emotional rather t h a n scientific methods. Values
in
Industry
We must not m a k e t h e mistake of discounting t h e effect and value of emotion. I t is t h e fashion of late years t o disparage i n d u s t r y . T h e factory head is no longer looked up t o as a goal for ambitious youth a n d h e himself almost seems t o wear, if n o t a n apologetic, then at least an explanatory, air. There is n o t h i n g wrong about profits. T h e y a r e t h e wages of stockholders whose investment has made t h e company possible. As a m a t t e r of fact, it is probably not in the public interest t h a t any basic business should be forced to face recurring deficits. I t has always interested me to see how mere aggregations of letters which form words can come t o have good and bad connotations even when they mean t h e same thing. I suppose this is an evidence of t h e efficacy of propaganda, but I am sure t h a t each one of you feels t h a t wages are a good thing b u t profits are something t o be ashamed of. Yet a t t h e present time in the chemical industry in America, it costs $24,000 to give a man a job, b y which I mean t h a t in the average installation, including t h e necessary services, if one divides the capital b y the number of workers t o be hired, one comes out with $24,000. Unless somebody accumulates $24,000 somewhere and p u t s it into t h e enterprise, a worker will not have a job. Obviously also, if there is no worker, there will be no wages paid for the $24,000. T h e t w o a r e absolutely interdependent. N e i t h e r is more i m p o r t a n t t h a n the other. I feel t h a t management is a little too
40 » » O C T O B E R
6,
1947
much afraid of the stockholders who are broader t h a n it thinks. Stockholders are people just like everybody else. Very few of them are as big and fat as the cartoonists portray. We have had m a n y instances in our own company of this in connection with the Texas City disaster. Some stockholders actually sent back their dividend checks a n d asked t h a t the funds be applied to relief of the victims. When a new project for construction is up for consideration, careful estimates are made of capital requirements, sales volume and prices, markets, a n d return o'n investment. B u t if t h e installation is of a laborsaving or labor-shifting type, rarely does anything appear to show what is to be done with the displaced workers. New placement, re-education, or retraining of these is just as much a part of t h e cost of the project as t h e rest. Because these are not considered we have the fights of workers and their unions here a n d there for a part in the decision. If we are to have real progress their future must be planned for as well a n d as thoroughly a s the engineering. J u s t as business has sought help from the government in t h e way of subsidies, tariffs, and so forth, so now the unions want and are getting special aids. They will continue t o do so unless t h e problems are better solved by more social consciousness on the p a r t of management. The disproportion in t h e advance of social sciences has given us a lack of real ways of measuring a man's capabilities, which in t u r n has forced t h e unions t o insist on seniority as t h e sole criterion of promotion, and this is a b o u t t h e worst criterion t h a t could be adopted. Because there is no sound way of measuring other than personal opinion, colored as it always must be subjectively) we are straddled with the seniority burden. The belief t h a t only the material counts has caused a widely prevalent prejudice against nonmonetary rewards. I t is agreed t h a t such rewards should not be a substitute for wages, but we must feed the soul as well as t h e body. T h e prejudice is just as inherent in management as in the unions since their thinking is alike and they are only quarreling over the quantitative factors of wages, pensions, social security, and so forth. True, a good job well done is a satisfaction t o the doer himself, b u t in most cases t h e satisfaction will not go very far unless ways are found to give him distinction among his fellows. Extra vacations, public acknowledgment of promotion, gifts, medals, a n d other awards, opportunities for education, clubs to attain which mean something, and above all the personal touch will go far t o give the satisfaction which material things cannot bring. These are t h e antitheses of the collectivist theory, a n d will be opposed vigorously by levelers from both sides. Management should therefore recognize t h a t neither the workers or t h e stockhold(Continued on page 2948)
2903
CONSULTANTS C H E M I C A L CONSULTANTS, E N G I N E E R I N G SERVICES, T E S T I N G LABORATORIES, PATENT ATTORNEYS, ETC. R A T E S — s e e p a g e 2919 ( D i s p l a y S p a c e O n l y )
THE ANDERSON PHYSICAL LABORATORY 609 S O . SIXTH ST.
C H A M P A I G N , ILL.
Research and Consulting in Chemical Physics Scott Anderson, Director
Products and Processes {Continued from page 2926)
Periodic Current
Reverse Electroplating
A process for electroplating which markedly reduces polishing costs as well a s providing an elect rodeposit of great smoothness, increased density, and docreased porosity is announced by t h e Hanson-Van Winkle-Munning Co., M a t a wan, N . J., and is an engineering develop ment of the Westinghouse Electric C o r p . I t involves a novel, periodic reverse plat ing cycle in which the plating current is reversed briefly a t short periodic inter vals. Better plate distribution and thicker than normal deposits are obtained a t higher current densities t h a n a r e generally used. T h e company is now prepared t o issue licenses for the process a n d to engi neer complete industrial installations. Laboratory s t u d y has shown t h a t ex cellent results m a y be obtained with high speed copper cyanide baths using a 5second plating to 1-second deplating cycle. However, in commercial practice it h a s been shown that a 20- t o 4-second cycle, as well as cycles intermediate between this and the δ- to 1-second cycle, are satisfac tory.
Metalast System of Painting T h e C. A. Woolsey P a i n t & Color Co., inc., 229 East 42nd St., New York 17, Ν . Υ., has developed a n d is m a r k e t i n g protective coatings called t h e Metalast System of painting. These paints contain new resins and h a v e demonstrated merit in prevent ing t h e corrosion of industrial equipment and t h e corrosion and fouling of ships' bottoms. Strong adhesion to all types of metals, high resistance t o abrasion, a n d the extremely impervious properties of t h e coatings are a m o n g the chief attributes of t h e system. T h e washcoat primer is applied as a single coat and serves as an anchor for subsequent coatings on steel, aluminum, galvanized iron, stainless steel, 2948
INFRARED RESEARCH Research, E n g i n e e r i n g , Analyses SAMUEL P. SADTLER & SONS, INC. 210 S o . 13th St., P h i l a d e l p h i a , P a .
MICRO ANALYSES
and alloys. Metalast anticorrosive, t w o or three coats of which m a y be applied within a few hours, provides a tough bar rier coat with tight inner-coat adhesion. Third and last i s the Metalast t o p coat. Aluminum is used for m a n y industrial purposes while Metalast antifouling (reel) is used for ship bottoms. These coatings all air-dry within 15 t o 20 minutes and m a y be brushed, although they are preferably sprayed. A d e a n steel surface is t h e only requirement for surface preparation. Inside air-conditioning systems, Metal ast c o a t i n g s h a v e withstood 1 0 0 % h u midity for 10 m o n t h s without corrosion, and it is a l s o showing promise for corrosion prevention in cargo oil deep t a n k s carry ing oils or salt w a t e r .
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Values (Continued from page 2903) ers are simply pocketbooks. Both need to know of the i m p o r t a n c e to the public wel fare of t h e enterprise, t h e place it fills ID t h e nation's life a n d why at times courses must be t a k e n in t h e public interest which momentarily seem to contradict those of either group o r both. B y recognizing t h a t n o business c a n be entirely an individual thing and likewise t h a t its human p a r t s are not machinée b u t souls, industry would solve m a n y problems now being a t t a c k e d by nonexpert mental doctrinaires. Conclusion
Protective
Silica
Coat
Silcote, a d e v e l o p m e n t of National Research C o r p . , 7 0 Memorial Drive, Cambridge 42, Mass., is said .to produce greatly i m p r o v e d protective coats of silica on front surface mirrors b y low-tempera ture, low-pressure evaporation. There is no measurable difference in reflectivity be tween coated and uncoated surfaces. Front surface mirrors with Silcote pro tection h a v e a resistance t o abrasion more than 1,600 times t h a t of an unprotected mirror, claim the manufacturers. In actual t e s t s an unprotected front surface mirror was damaged by 25 cycles of an abrasion tester while the Silcote-ed surface did not show d a m a g e after 40,000 cycles of the same tester.
Acids and
Aldehydes
Iso- and terephthalic acids a n d rare al dehydes s u c h a s caprylaldehyde a r e among the new o r g a n i c chemicals recently de veloped b y t h e Genesee Research Corp. T h e a d d i t i o n of these m a k e s a t o t a l of more t h a n 40 r a r e organic chemicals which this company now h a s available in research and pilot-plant q u a n t i t i e s . T h e company has facilities a n d personnel t o meet customers' requirements. A list of chemicals which it offers will b e s e n t u p o n request t o Genesee Research C o r p . , 577 Lyell Ave., Rochester, Ν. Υ. C H E M I C A L
These thoughts may be considered a r e t u r n t o archaicism, t o a yearning for t h e so-called "good old days" which really were n o t good a t all. However, I do not t h i n k this is t r u e . One of our cigarette advertisements in t h e United S t a t e s is constantly pounding in t h e idea t h a t ''something new has been added.'" T h a t new t h i n g is the world of science. Science gives us the ability t o control ourselves and our lives t o a degree no good old day ever h a d . Science has been only a partial success because it early fell into t h e h a n d s of materialists and hence has h a d a lopsided development, w h i c h has accentuated problems without presenting means for their correction. For these reasons we have had two reactionary movements, o n t h e one hand a, r e t u r n to rugged individualism, the law of the jungle a n d t h e first s t a t e of man, a n d on t h e o t h e r h a n d t o authoritarianism in its forms of fascism a n d collectivism, a reaction t o the second s t a t e of man, despotism. Let u s therefore t h r o w out the materialistic view of life, concede to t h e social sciences and religion their equality with t h e physical, perhaps even their superiority, a n d help t h e m catch up with u s and prevent a further descent into the past. You can depend upon i t , no scientist will be h u r t as a scientist b y having a developed soul. AND
ENGINEERING
NEWS
