Industry Must Provide Postgraduate Fellowships yet we know of only two, J. T. Baker Chemical Co. and Standard Oil of Sew Jersey, which have established such fellowships a t our colleges and universities. Possibly there are more. but me cannot recall them a t the moment. We need more than just fellowships at the graduate level-we need several chairs of analytical chemistry endowed so that we can attract and hold top-notch teachers in the analytical field. How many of our colleges and universities emphasize to any worth-while degree the field of analytical chemistry? We know just one, Louisiana State, where particular emphasis is being given to the task of training analysts. The field has been most fortunate in that inen like Furman, Kolthoff, Willard, I\lellon, and a few others by their personal magnetism have kept alive an interest sufficient to attract a fair number of younger men who at personal sacrifices continue to teach, but the number is wholly inadequate to train properly the men and women industry will need in the next ten or twenty years. The older teachers and the younger ones have labored and continue to labor under discouraging conditions. If industry fails to undertake a t least support of such fellowships as we have suggested, it will find in the not too distant future that its operations will be severely handicapped. Quality cannot be maintained without the analyst and he is now or should be a part of all research teains working on new products. Industry has saved tremendous sums through the introduction of new analytical techniques. Additional savings will be made only if proper personnel is available. Industry should also realize that by giving a sizable number of postgraduate fellowships in analytical chemistry it will in effect be saying to the young chemist trying to determine which field to enter, ‘(We think analytical chemistry is important.” Today most young men and women who have the qualifications to become analysts of professional stature turn their backs on the opportunity because they doubt that industry yet has a proper conception of the value of analytical chemistry. We do have, we feel certain, a goodly number of companies which recognize the true worth of the analyst and will back up that understanding on their part by establishing fellowships. We stand ready to give credit where credit is due.
several speakers at the recent analytical symposia a t Louisiana State University and Pittsburgh and in conversations with a number of teachers of analytical chemistry and industrial analysts during these meetings we have received fresh confirmation of the fact that only a mere handful of men and women are taking the necessary graduate training t o fit them to be top-flight analysts, the type that ultimately fits into responsible posit,ions in industry. A11 but a few students at the graduate level turn to organic, physical, or some other field because analytical is coipidered to be less glamorous. They also firmly believe that opportunities are fewer in the analytical field than elsewhere and the financial remuneration often below that paid researchers generally. Whether the field of analytical chemistry is less glamorous than, let us say, organic synthesis is a debate that, we intend to dodge, but we will say that analytical today presents a worthy challenge for our best chemical minds and only those who are highly endowed and especially well trained can hope to reach successful pinnacles either in teaching or industry. There is no shortage of routine workers and laboratory technicians. but there is evidence that industry is finding it increasingly more difficult to obtain personnel capable of initiating, directing, and interpreting research in analytical chemistry including, of course, physicochemical and purely physical methods. Industry has a direct interest in this situation, but unfortunately does not seem to be aware of what is happening. Industrial progress cannot continue at its present rapid rate if we have a serious undersupply of highly trained analysts who can direct the technicians. Wonderful strides in instrumentation have been made in the past ten years, more especially in the past five, but this pace will slacken because we shall not have sufficient chemists who know how to eniploy these aids. Even a selfish viewpoint should dictate to industry the wisdom of making certain that more highly trained analysts are developed in the next decade than have been turned out in the past ten years. There must be at least 25, possibly 50 companies in this country which could well afford to establish postgraduate followships in the field of analytical chemistry,
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