Sept., 1922
THE JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
779
local libraries, it is enabled to put patrons proniptly in touch extent of her industries afford an important outlet for the with this supplementary material. product of this education. I n confirmation of this stateI n the selection of books the Carnegic Library of Pitts- ment, one interesting bit of evidence is found in the fact that burgh probably makes more use of book reviews than does many thoughtful technical students, after a year in contact any other library, and in connection with this work the Tech- with Pittsburgh conditions, change to courses in Chemistry. nology Department publishes a quarterly “Technical Book Review Index,” which is the only publication in the world devoted to recording reviews of new scientific and technical books. The Foundation for Chemical The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh is the only large library that regularly publishes a classified catalog in book Development form. The sections of this catalog dealing with scientific By W. A. Noyes and technical books may be purchased separately, the latest series including books added to the collection during the years UNIVSRSXTY O F ILLINOIS, U R B A N A , ILLINOIS 1912-1916, inclusive. This catalog is brought u p to date by N 1918, in the midst of the Great War, a society for a ((MonthlyBulletin,” which is annually provided with H subcheniical industry was organized in France. In one ject index. ThePe publications enable patrons a t some disof the early numbers of the journal published by the tance from this library to keep much more closely in touch with the resources and growth of the book collection than is socipty an estimate was given of the number of chemists in the leading countries before the war. According to thiq espossible with most libraries. timate there were 30,The Technology Department has compiled and published 000 chemists in Germany bibliographies on special technical topics. Among many, 5000 in Engthe subjects included are Lampblack; By-product Coking; land, 2,500 in France, Sewage Disposal; Mica; Sand; and Refuse and Garbage Dism d about 18,000 in posal. A list of nearly 600 references on water-glass is now America. These numin press. The Technology Librarian compiles qinual lists bers indicate v e r y of new books on iron and steel and on the coal industry. clearly that if America These lists are published in local trade journals, and, through will use her opporthe courtesy of the editors, reprinted and distributed by the tiinity she may soon library. This department makes use of a “classified” card hold the position of catalog-a type found in only two other large technical lipreeminent importance braries, but which affords better service than the card cakain chemistry held by logs generally found in libraries. Germany before the That the Technology Department is of some definite value war. At such a time to the chemists in the community is evidenced by the attiwe should inquire on tude of the local membership of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL what foundation we SOCIETY.I n 1921, a general reduction of mullicipal apmust build if we are propriations affected the library to some extent. Realizto seize the chance ing that the funds available for technical literature were W. A . N o m s which surely lies withinsufficient to maintain the service which this community in our graep. deserves and rightfully expects, the Pittsburgh Section orAlmost exactly one hundred years ago a young German of ganized a Library Committee which, under the able leadernineteen took his doctor’s degree at Erlangen in Germany. ship of Mr. J. 0. Handy, raised among the local industries a fund of $2500 for supplementing the resources of the After that he went to Paris to study with Gay-Lussac, for technology department, thus making possible the purchase chemistry was a t a very low ebb in Germany in those days of some important reference material. This fund mas drawn and he chose to work with one of the greatest chemists of upon also to finance an undertaking which enables this his time. There is such a thing as scientific heredity. It library to offer a special service not available elsewhere. differs from physical heredity in that a man may choose his A list has been macle of the actual numbers identifying all own father. And SO Liebig chose Gay-Lussac, jJist as Wohler, patents in 48 complete classes of the U. 5. Patent Office his intimate friend of later years, chose Berzelius, the Swedclassification. These classes comprise approximately 200,000 ish chemist-the greatest chemist of that time. It is worth our patents, covering, in general, the entire field of chemistry while to remember, too, that it was only six years after the and metallurgy. This is 3, field of great local importance and close of the Napoleonic wars, when France and Germany within its limits users of the library are now enabled to make had been bitter enemies-but Liebig went to Pariq to study a complete patent search by subjects-a service not possible chemistry. Two years later he returned home and at the age of twenty-one he was made assistant professor in Giessen, with the printed indexes issued by the Patent Oifice. So far as is known to the writer of this article, this work of and in another year he was appointed full professor. There in Giessen he founded R new school of chemistry. the Pittsburgh Section is unprecedented in the history of I t was not so much a place where students were taught what any public library in America. Such action is a source of great gratification and encouragement to the library staff, was known of their science, as a workshop where students and such constructive cooperation will go far to improve the and teacher worked side by side in the endeavor to add something to the world’s knowledge. T o that laboratory library service in the community. men came from all over the world and from that laboratory CONCLUSION went out influences that touch every chemist and, it might The character of the instruction in Pittsburgh’s educa- almost be said, every individual in the world today. One of the students in Liebig’s laboratory, A. W. Hoffman, tional institutions, the close conticct with her basic industries, and the superiority of her resources in chemical lit- was called to London in 1845 by Prince Albert, to fill a chair erature combine t o make Pittsburgh an exceptionally fsv- in the newly founded College of Chemistry. Ten years later orable field for chemical education, while the natnre and he had an assistant by the name of Willixm H. Perkin, only
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T H E JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
nineteen years of age. Young Perkin fitted up a small laboratory at home, and there he tried some esperjments to convrrt aniline into quinine. We know now that there was not the slightest possibility of doing what he attempted, Instead he obtained a beautifully colored compound, the substance we call mauve. He tells us that at that time when chemists got a colored compound in their operations they were accustomed to throw it in the slop jar or remove it with honeblack. Perkin was struck with the beauty of the substance and he conceived the notion that it might be profitable to manufacture it for a dye. The story of Perkin’s difficulties and success is one of the romance9 of science and of industry. Benzene was not made by the ton then, as it is to-day. It was necessary to transform laboratory test-tube reactions into factory operations. Even when all these troubles were over and the mauve had been produced in quantity, the dyers who had been ~ C O L I S tomed to Turkey red and fustic and indigo and other dyes of natural origin did not know how to use it, and Perkin had to go into their dyehouses and teach them. Soon afterwards two German chemists, Graebe and Lkbermann, demonstrated that anthracene is the mother substance of alizarin, the Turkey red obtained from madder root. They also succeeded in making alizarin from anthracene, but they did not succeed in establishing commercial production on the basis of their scientific discovery. Once more it was Perkin who did this in hiq factory, and within a few years the manufacOure of alizarin from coal tar was YO successful that the Dutch farmers had to give up raising madder root. Even as early as 1880 it was estimated that the alizarin which was manufactured from anthracene at a cost of $8,000,000 a year would have cost $28,000,000 if it had been prepared from mRdder root. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that enough has been saved from this to pay for all the university laboratories in the world. With such a beginning one would think that the coal-tar dye industry belonged to Fngland. The initial great success was achieved there, and the coal tar from which the dyes were made was produced in much larger quantities in England than on the continent. But within a few years the new industry was almost completely transferred to Germany. At the beginning of the Great War the value of the product of this manufacture was estimated a t about $100,000,000 annually, from two-thirds to three-fourths of the whole amount being made in Germany. We used in America dyes to the value of about $17,000,000, but manufactured only about $3,000,000 worth ourselves. Why should Germany so far surpass all other countries in this industry? The chief reason undoubtedly was that Germany had a larger number of chemists trained in methods of research in the spirit of Liebig’s laboratory. There were other reasons that me do not like so well. Over and again American manufacturers tried to make aniline and other substances called “intermediates” which are used for the preparation of various dyes. In every case German mmufacturers took care that the price of the article made was put so low that the American manufacturer was forced out, of the buq’ mess. A few years ago our sailors were in danger of going to meet the submarines, blind, because we could not manufacture the optical glass needed to make the necessary instruments. I n such an emergency to whom did we turn for help? To the manufacturers of glass? No, we appealed instead to men trained by many years of research a t the Bureau of Standards and at the Geophysical TJaboratory in Washington, where they had been studying silicates, not for the purpose of making glass, but in order to discover how the rocks have been formed. Thew men were able to attack the problem, and with the aid of a manufacturer they were ready to furnish six
1701. 14, No. 9
differentkinds of glass within a few months. Then a seventh different glass was called for. Meanwhile, they had worked out the so-called triaxial diagram for silica, potash, and litharge, by means of which they could predict the relation between the composition of a glass made from theseingredients and its index of refraction and dispersion. They located on this diagram the composition of the glass having the desired properties, put the materials together, and it came out right the first time. Such is the difference between the old cut and dry method? of so-called practical men and a genuine scientific method. Universities are not the only institutions where researches we prosecuted. It was a t the Royal Institution of London that Sir Humphry Davy made those brilliant discoveries in electrochemistry which lie at the foundation of the great electrochemical industries of our time. There Faraday discovered the laws of electrical induction, that an electrical ciirrent could produce mechanical motion, and that mechanical motion could produce an electrical current. Those were principles which carried the germ of every machine. used to generate electricity and of every electrical motor in use to-day. Not long ago the Dean of a College of Commerce in one of our state universities made the statement that there are two ideals in vogue in these schools. One is that the students shall be trained primarily to do some specific thing-to be a stenographer, a bookkeeper, an accountant or something of that sort-in short, that the training shall be vocational. The other idea is educational, the laying of a broad, thorough foundation for future work. He spoke emphatically in favor of the second ideal. Thirty years ago many of us got the impression that the steel industry v a s calling for chemists who could make steel analyses just as those analyses were made in a works laboratory. That was training for a trade, not for a profession, and many young men trained in that way found that they were soon displaced by high school lads or boys of even less training, who could carry out the mechanical manipulations required as well as they. It was only those with a broader, professional training who continued successfully in work as chemists. We often tell our students that it is fully as important to secure good training in mathematics, physics, German, and French as it is to study cheniistry while in college. If they are successful as chemists they will continue to study chemistry all their lives but they will probably never again find such a good opportunity to study the other things essential as a foundation for their work. A thorough knowledge of chemistry and of related sciences is not enough. It was not knowledge of chemirtry, merely, nor, indeed, chiefly, which made the men trained in Liebig’s laboratory so efficient. It was not knowledge alone which made many of our chemists and physicists so efficient in the emergencies of war. The factor of far greater importance was the habit of research, the ability to attack new and strange problems and solve them quickly. Chemical knowledge was much more limited one hundred years ago than it is to-day and the young men in Liebig’s laboratory were given the joy of research work after comparatively brief preliminary training. It, now takes several years to gain that elementary knowledge of inorganic, analytical, organic, and physical chemistry which we think essential. Our students certainly do not get a too comprehensive knowledge of these subjects but it is a question whether we do not carry the process of cramming too far before we give them an opportunity to begin constructive work. As teachers, too, there may be a question whether we are not sometimes more anxious that they should get results of interest to us rather than that they should acquire the habit of solving difficulties for themselves with a minimum of guidance from others.
