group, have a rating which is higher than that for admission to reputable standard colleges. When the college course is completed the College of Education has no graduates which it may hesitate to recommend for teaching. CHARLESCARROLL STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUWTION PROVIDENCE. REODE ISLAND
King's Buildings, West Mains Road, Edinburgh. JOSEPH E. ROCCA THEUNIVERSITY EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND THE LATE LAMENTED SENATE
To the Editor DEARSIR: May I have a word for the late Senate of Chemical Education? As one who for several years wore too MEMORIAL FOR SIR JAMES WALKER lightly the robe of Senator, conscience demands that the brief obituary notice in the December issue of the To the Editor JOURNAL (p. 566) be followed by some expression of human emotion for the departed. While i t is generally conceded that death occurred several years ago, i t was To commemorate the services of Sr James Walker, fitting that interment should take place in the Golden Professor of Chemistry a t the University of Edinburgh West where the deceased first saw the light ten years from 1908 to 1928, to chemistry in general and to the ago. chemistry department of the University of Edinburgh in It may offendthe plebeian sense of propriety to dwell particular, i t is proposed to establish a fund for a Walker Memorial Lecture to be delivered annually by upon might-have-beens on such a solemn occasion, an eminent chemist invited to Edinburgh by the Ediu- but when the great of earth depart, the dirge, "The king is dead," is often drowned in the shout, "Long burgh University Chemical Society for that purpose. Sir James Walker, who died in May, 1935, was the live the king." While we have no heir apparent to leading exponent of physical chemistry in Great Britain propose we cannot refrain from some wistful speculafor nearly iifty years. During the Great War he tion on how the Senate might have met several probdid valuable work in the manufacture of high explo- lems had i t preserved its health to this good hour. Who would deny that the Senate, with its represives, and the new chemical laboratories which he sentatives from high school, college, and industry, was designed and fitted up a t Edinburgh are among the better constituted than the Council of the American foremost, both in equipment and research activity, in Chemical Society to deliberate over the question of the this country. qualifications of high-school teachers of science? And The Chemical Society of the University of Edinburgh yet it was the latter body which a t the recent Cleveland enjoys the distinction of being the oldest chemical meeting of the Society took the first steps toward a society in the world, since i t has recently been estabsolution of that problem. lished that i t existed as far back as 1785 under the How the mighty are fallen in the councils of chemical sponsorship of Joseph Black. The Chemical Society education when the editorial columns of our leading of Philadelphia, founded in 1792, has hitherto been industrial journal must blaze the trail toward some regarded as the oldest in the world, but John Morgan, official recognition of those institutions of higher learnwho first taught chemistry a t the Medical School of the ing best qualified to give adequate professional training. College of Philadelphia-now the University of PennsylAs a result of this prodding it was again the Council vania-and Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the (this time a t the San Francisco meeting) which initiDeclaration of Independence, who succeeded him, were ated the attack upon this academic problem. both students of Black in Edinburgh, and i t is thus And, finally, why should our sister organization, the highly probable that when James Woodhouse in 1792 American Association for the Advancement of Scifounded the Chemical Society of Philadelphia, he was ence, through its Junior Academy movement, be left deliberately and consciously following the footsteps to carry forward single-handed the program of enlistof Joseph Black. It is felt that a yearly meeting a t ment of the high-school youths in the cause of science? which the student members of this august body may The American Chemical Society essay contests are of have the opportunity of making direct contact with blessed memory, but why did the Senate with its ideal the researches of distinguished investigators in chemisset-up of high-school, college, and industrialrepresentatry from other universities will provide a most stimulattion desert the field when the battle had only begun? ing permanent memorial of the labors of Sir James Did i t sense the magnitude of the approaching conflict Walker for the advancement of the science in Edinalong this and the other lines suggested, and in burgh and elsewhere. cowardice and littleness of its own soul shrivel and die! Former students of Sir James Walker and any others Heaven forbid! Peace be with its ashes! who may wish to assist in the project are requested to JOAN R. SAMPEY send subscriptions to Mr. J. E. Rocca, Honorary SecreFURUNUNIVEXSITY tary of the Edinburgh University Chemical Society, GREENVIILE, SOUTACAROLINA
