Aaron J. lhde
University of Wisconsin Madison, 53706
Let's Teach History of Chemistry to Chemists!
Early in the twentieth century there were many courses in the history of chemistry. I suspect that if one examined college catalogs for 1910 or 1920 one would find more courses offered than is the case today. To a large degree these early courses were anecdotal, past oriented, and frequently irrelevant. I n 1930 I took such a course from Louis Kahlenberg a t Wisconsin. The course was great fun. Kahlenberg was a showman with strong likes and dislikes. We came to revere Scheele, Davy, Berzelius, Avogadro, Faraday, Liehig, Wohler, and Bunsen. We had misgivings about Arrhenius, van't Hoff, and Ostwald. (Although he had taken his PhD under Ostwald, Kahlenberg had quickly come to distrust ionization and chemical thermodynamics.) We learned further that: "Black X k = white," "The second law of thermodynamics means that 'water won't flow uphill,' " "Thermodynamics is all right for studying steam Presented at the Symposium on Teaching the History of Chemistry, sponsored jointly by the Division of Chemical Eduosi tion and the Division of Historv of Chemistrv at the 160th National Meeting of the ~merioanChemical ~aciety,Chica~o, September 15, 1970.
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engines. It is the greatest humbug ever got up," "Harvard never produced anyone of great originality," "Government should be run so we get dividends," "Every time you drink milk you rob the calf," and "Philosophers go the way in which scientists shove them" (I). Textbooks available for such courses tended not to go beyond 1900 or, at the very most, made a few remarks about the nuclear atom. Kahlenberg had us purchase Hilditch's "Concise History of Chemistry," ($), but made no assignments from it. Moore's "History of Chemistry" (3) was probably much more popular a t the time. It is not surprising that the history of chemistry came t o be treated with a casual attitude by curriculum builders who frequently took the opportunity to weed history of chemistry out of the list of requirements, especially when the professor offering the course reached retirement age. As the subject of chemistry grew in scope, professors teaching the basic courses found it more and more difficult to cover their subject adequately. As a result, history of chemistry courses became a target for those wishing to utilize student time for expanded versions of basic courses.
I would argue very strongly that it is time to take a positive approach toward history of chemistry. It is a subject which is important in its own right and needs no defense or apologies. There is no question' that we can train a chemical technologist without teaching him any history of chemistry and he may be a very good technologist indeed. I would argue with equal vehemence that we cannot educate a chemist without history of chemistry. I am interested, and I believe most of us are, in the education rather than the training of chemists. The person who is merely trained to carry out analyses or syntheses can do his job quite satisfactorily without knowing much chemical theory and any history of chemistry. On the other hand, the chemist who is in a position where he has significant responsibility for the planning of investigations needs to know something about the past history of chemical investigation and the development of chemical thought. Without such knowledge he is merely a technologist. A good history of chemistry course should be characterized by the following (1) It integrates the several traditional branches of chemistry into a coherent whole (2) It creates a realistic picture of the science, showing that chemistry is a. dynamic rather than s. static subject (3) It places chemistry in perspective as a human activity
Anyone undertaking a history of chemistry course is quite apt to feel frustrated by the enormous amount of material which is available and ask how the emphasis and time should be distributed in, let us say, a onesemester course of two or three hours per week (4). I would argue first that there is not one successful way to teach the history of chemistry. There are as many ways as there are successful teachers of the subject, and i t would be unwise for a new teacher of the subject to feel that he must imitate a course which has already proven successful. Although a course should aim toward balance between the various important developments which have taken place in the science, this balance need not lead to a "once over lightly" survey. Instead of attempting to include every name, every synthesis, and every theory there might better be a selection of a number of important topics which are treated in depth with mere allusion to many peripheral subjects which cannot be treated in detail because of time limitations. I would advise the potential teacher of history of chemistry to play his strengths and interests and avoid his weaknesses, not to the extent of completely excluding subjects where his knowledge is minimal, but to the extent that it is impossible to do a good job because he does not have the time available to make himself fully knowledgeable. The professor whose primary interest is organic chemistry can lean heavily on subject matter from this area of chemistry
and still have a meaningful course. Certainly, he must not omit analytical, inorganic, and physical subjects completely, but there are enough interrelationships with organic that he can very easily design a meaningful course which provides a satisfactory degree of balance. Just ss all courses in physical chemistry are not identical so all courses in history of chemistry should not be identical. Finally, I would like to say a few words with respect to graduate study in the history of chemistry. The discipline is as deserving of serious study as are many other subdisciplines of chemistry. Certainly, in the creation of a chemistry major curriculum, we would hardly design a curriculum which did not include a certain amount of organic, inorganic, analytical, and physical chemistry. Beyond this point, schools vary a great deal in the details of the curriculum depending upon the strengths and interests of their faculties. It is quite proper that history of chemistry should develop as a subdiscipline of chemistry and that some of our larger universities and even some of our colleges have on their staffs a person who is primarily a scholar in this field. I n departments where graduate studies are offered, a few departments should encourage research in the history of chemistry by building good libraries, and serving as depositories for manuscript collections and iconographic materials (6). All too little attention has been given in the past fifty years to the preservation of historical records in the history of science. Those of us who are actively engaged in this field of scholarship find that many critical materials have been irretrievably lost. In order to prevent this from happening in the future it is necessary to encourage serious work in the history of chemistry in at least a few of our graduate schools. It is to such people that other departments can turn when the question arises. "What should be done with Professor Doe's files? He died six months ago and we need the space." We also need to develop graduate study for the sake of producing sound historians of science, whether they he devoting their major effort to this subject or whether they be merely teaching an occasional course in the subject. The history of chemistry is sufficiently important that it cannot be left to retired professors or to the weekend activities of interested chemists. Literature p l e d (1) Inoe, A. J. "Manuscript nates of the leotures of Louis Kahlanbarg in History of Chemistry. 1930-1931," gdsirn. MS in the poasesaion of the author. (2) Hilditch. T. P., "A Concise History of Chemistry," Methuen, London, Znded.. 1922. (3) moan^. F. J., "A History of Chemistry," MoGraw-Hill, New York. 1918: reviaed 2nd and3rdeds. bv W. T. Hall. 1931.1939. (4) For k summary of my own co;rses See thedescriptions in KA~PFxAN. G e o n a ~B.. ed., "Teaching the History of Chemistry: A Symposium," (Hungarian Aoademy of Soienoea, Budapest,inprers). (5) For more detailed discussion of these points see reference ( 4 ) and I a o ~ , A. J.. Sclanlilio Monthly. 81,183-6 (1955).
Volume 48, Number 10, October 1971
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