LETTERS The First High-School Chemistry Laboratory? To the Editor: The statement of Dr. B. V. B. Dixon (quoted by Professor Harry N. Holmes on page 195 of the JOURNAL CHEMICAL EDUCATION for April) that the first chemical laboratory of high-school grade in the United States was probably installed by him in the St. Louis Central High School in September, 1876, would seem t o require correction. Laboratory instruction in chemistry was given in the High School of Cambridge, Massachusetts, a t least ten years before the date named b y Dr. Dixon. Among the chemists who obtained their first instruction in chemistry a t the Cambridge High School was the late Dr. Charles E. Munroe, who on several occasions told me of the instruction which he received a t this institution between the years 1864 and 1868. I quote from my obituary of Dr. Mumoe lJ. Am. Chem. Sac., 61, 1302 (1939)l. OF
"The principal of the school. W. 1. Rolfe, the well-known Shakespearean scholar and editor of school texts, was interested in chemistry but instruction in this subject devolved chieily apon his associate, J. A. Gillet, with whom Rolfe collaborated in the publication of a 'Handbook of Chemistry far School and Home Use' (Boston. 1869). These teachers encouraged the prerociaus talent of young Munroe by making him an assistant whose duty it was t o fill the reagent bottles and look after the chemical supplies."
Additional information about the early chemical
courses in the Cambridge High School has been given me by Mr. George W. Rolfe, son of the former principal and a member of the American Chemical Society since 1893. I quote from his recent letter: "My father William J . Rolfe resigned as principal in 1868 when I was four years old. Mr. Gillet resigned a t about the same time and later became the teacher of science (physics and chemistry) in the New YorkState Normal College (if I recall the name of the institution correctly). I do know that through their influence a large amount of physical and chemical apparatus was bought for the school a t that time and also that a chemical laboratory with four or five benches for students was installed, with reagents, probably a t the same time, for they were there for the period that I was a t school, 1877 t o 1881, inclusive, although none of the laboratory equipment was then in use. This I can explain. I believe, for there was a t that time a radical change in the policy of the school heads which may have influenced the resignation of my father and Mr. Gillet."
This change of policy, prevalent also in other high schools, is ascribed by Mr. Rolfe to the stress placed by Harvard and other colleges upon classical languages and mathematics for entrance requirements and to the growing number of high-school students who prepared for college: "The new head of Cambridge High School," writes Mr. Rolfe, "devoted all his energies t o putting boys into college on strict 'classical' lines. He abolished physics, chemistry, and biology, or (more accurately) reduced them t o a lecture a week. The courses for colleges (mostly for neighboring Harvard) were for a five-year period. The whole school was reconstructed for the
purpose of putting boys into college.
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Scientific apparatus
There were perhaps a few high that established laboratory Courses in chemistry before the one a t Cambridge and it is hoped that Mr. Rolfe's letter which I have quoted only in part may bring forth additional information on this subject. The fact that chemical laboratory instruction in high schools was first attempted during the Civil War period and that it afterward underwent a temporary decline seems to have been overlooked by historians of American chemistry. C. A. BROmE U. S. DEPARTMENT oa A G R I C U L T ~ E WASHINGTON. D. C.
In Appreciation of Herbert Freundlich
To the Editor: Recently, some journals of the learned societies announced the death of Professor Herbert Freundlich, of the University of Minnesota. The announcements were catalogs of his main scientific achievements, records of his academic posts, documentation of his research interests. I wished for an appreciation of his great human qualities, of his honesty and unselfishness, of his genuineness and goodness. An obituary in Science did call him one of "science's noblemen." He was that, and more. His character and personality were above the men-of-good-will type, advanced and ideal. All who knew him valued his unassuming attitudes and refreshing friendliness. Herbert Freundlicys mother was English, and his father German. At times, his use and enunciation of the American language betrayed British residence and ancestry. (He did work and live in England from 1933 to 1938.) When I left his home in Minneapolis one day to take a train back to Chicago, he asked whether I intended to catch a "tram" to the depot. He spoke exceedingly well, with hardly a German accent. His German thoroughness was always evident. I remember his correcting my assertion, minor with respect to the general idea involved, that the German public school system soon after the Franco-Prussian war had three divisions, for children of poor, middleclass, and wealthy parents. He cited his own education in Nassau, and suggested that conditions varied in different patts of Pmssia; when he had gone to public school, from 1886 to 1898, conditions had not been so extremely centralized and standardized. His early scientific work was pioneering, new to the extent of being challenging and audacious. Freundlich's work in colloid chemistry was novel, though in line with the growth of physical chemistry a t the beginning of the century, and a logical continuation of his training in Ostwald's laboratory at Leipzig. He worked with Fritz Haber for seventeen years, from 1916 on. He appreciated this long association, admired the more famous Haber, but he knew his shortcomings and faults. Freundlich's co-workers at the renowned Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physi-
cal Chemistry in Dahlem, realizing his feeling for Haber and the Institute, nave him as a memento. when he left in 1933, a coliec%on of photographs concerning the laboratories and scientists at the research center. And when he emigrated, he took aU his belongings and furniture, astonishing English friends who did not expect him to behave as though the Nazi revolution were ir-reversible. 1 came to know professor preundlich when I approached him for material for a book I was writing, shall be very pleased to give you any information he reDlied to mv letter of inauinr. The vou * tone was. definiteiv that of'an altruist. It was aDpredated then; but more now, in retrospect, since others have asked compensation for almost similar material, or have refused to inconvenience themselves. When I first saw him, I attempted to explain the difficulties in gathering material; the failures, the drawbacks, the expectations, the intentions of my quest heretofore. He dismissed these with a wave of the hand and began to give me the facts I wanted. We talked for several hours that Sunday morning and afternoon, stopping only for dinner and his short afterdinner nap. I had prepared eighty or more questions, and he answered them when he was certain of the information. Three weeks later I saw him again. Not so much because the matter of acquiring the data was urgent, but more because his magnetic charm was vastly different from anything I had experienced. As a student, I had read about learning at the feet of a great man. That was not understandable as I looked about t h e university I attended and noticed, for the most part, cold and aloof scholars, disinterested and dispassionate laboratory hermits. Freundlich, on the contraty, was warm and human, wise and personable, knowledgeful and alive. I can understand why the students at theUniversity of Minnesota called him "Uncle Herbert." Without stopping to rest, he spoke to me for six hours that Saturday evening-remarkable, since he was busy preparing a special set of lectures, expected no compensation, and wanted no publicity. He gave me names and addresses of others who had pertinent data. To one, he later wrote letters on my behalf. After I had written the first draft of my manuscript, I sent a copy to Professor Freundlich for his evaluation. To my amazement, he went through it with a fine comb, pointing out factual errors, mistaken judgments, and untenable viewpoints. The criticism was not only complete, but it was also unassailable. An expert professional editor could not have done better work. He was versatile, and broad in his outside interests. literature, music, history, and aU phases of science. That was no doubt one reason why he was himself, as he described one woman to me, "exceptionally clever, sensible and, on the whole, free of prejudices." He was himself, as he described Einstein, "a distinctly unselfish man!' And he was himself as he described another scientist, "a most decent and courageous man."' M. G. A
