The Section, Division, and Journal A Brief Historical Retrospect N E I L E. GORDON Wayne 'University, Detroit, Michigan
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days I decided to return and discuss i t with h i in greater detail. At this visit he was very pleasant and finally told me that if I could get fifteen other people who believed the same as I did in this matter, he would present i t to Dr. Edgar F. Smith, who was then president of the society. He said Dr. Smith was interested in the history of chemistry and had already suggested that they have a Section of the History of Chemistry. Perhaps, he also suggested, it might be possible to put these two types of interest together. Within about ten days I had fifteen letters indicating that there were a t least that many people interested in a Section of Chemical Education. I made this report to Dr. Parsons, who said he would pass it on to Dr. Smith. Hence I went home feeling that my job was completed. In about two weeks from that date a letter was received from Dr. Parsons stating that he had followed the matter up and that Dr. Smith felt that the section of history should not be combined with the section of teachers. On the other hand, he said that Dr. Smith would be glad to serve in the capacity of chairman for each section independently and that Dr. Smith was requesting me to serve as secretary for the Section of Chemical Education and prepare a program for the fall meeting in New York (1921). This was done; the meeting was very well attended and was pronounced a success. This was the beginning of the Section of Chemical Education, which in the fall of 1924 became the Division of Chemical Education.= The second meeting of the Division was a t Pittsburgh; a t this meeting we had Dr. Holmes present a paper giving the topics which he covered in his college course. Following this, Dr. Mattern of Washington, D. C., read a second paper, in which he gave the content of his high-school course in chemistry. The result was that each of them covered practically the same ground. This led to a heated discussion which resulted in the formation of a national committee on the correlation of high-school and college chemi~try.~ The committee was to be composed of three highschool men, three college men, and three industrial men. Dr. Smith asked me to serve as chairman. I make special mention of this committee because Address, 105th meeting of the American Chemical Society. J. CHEM.EDUC.. 1,192 (1924).
HIS fall it will be twenty-two years since the first meetmg of the Section of Chemical Education, twenty years since the first issue of the JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION was put on the press, and eleven years since I resigned as editor of the JOURNAL. In fact, I spent about thirteen years of active service in connection with the Section, the Division, and the JOURNAL, and no thirteen years of my life have ever given me more satisfaction, in spite of the many "ups" and "downs." Today I shall emphasize the "ups" and forget the "downs." I am especially anxious to mention some of the men who were extremely helpful during this particular period. Time will not permit me to speak of others who should be mentioned. F i s t of all, let me turn to the first meeting of the American Chemical Society which I ever attended. It was the Rochester meeting in the spring of 1921. In those days my main interest was physical chemistry. Hence I spent this first meeting in the division of which Dr. Harry N. Holmes was chairman. In the last session of this divisional meeting, Dr. Edward Ellery of Union College read a paper on "Research for the undergraduate." TO me this was one of the most interesting papers. Therefore, a t the close of the session I went up to Dr. Holmes and asked him if he did not think that we might have more papers of this type. Dr. Holmes, in his usual encouraging manner, said he thought this wonld he possible, and suggested that I write Dr. Ellery about it. By the time I reached home, I had given more consideration to the proposition and had come to the conclusion that papers of this type wonld not be fitting in the Division of Physical Chemistry. If they were to be given, they should appear in a section of, their own. It was on this point that I wrote Dr. Ellery, after congratulating him on his fine paper. In reply, he suggested that I talk it over with Dr. Parsons, since the latter's office was only about ten miles from the University of Maryland. Soon after receiving the letter from Dr. Ellery, I visited Dr. Parsons in Washington and presented the proposition to him. He was not very optimistic and said that he did not believe a section of teachers would live. I left his office rather dis. couraged, but after thinking the matter over for a few
8 1 b i d . , 1, 34 (1924).
Detroit, Michigan, April 12, 1943.
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it had much influence upon the course of events during the three years following. It prepared a high-school outlme covering specific topics which was submitted for criticism to groups of teachers in all parts of the country. With these criticisms in mind, the committee prepared a concrete high-school outline. It was in connection with this outline that a man was selected in each of the various parts of the country to lead in the work and report back to the com~nittee.~These men were largely suggested by Frank B. Wade of Shortridge High School, Indianapolis, Indiana. I mention this point because of the specific influence these selections had a t a little later date. At the Milwaukee meeting of the American Chemical Society-that is, the meeting to which this committee report was given-I read a report before the Section of Chemical Education, bringing forth the troubles which were being encountered in publish'mg the various papers presented before the Section. Dr. H. E. Howe, Editor of the Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, and Dr. Arthur B. Lamb, Editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, were very courteous when some of the papers were presented to them for publication in their respective journals, but the facts were, as they stated, that the papers were not suited to their journals. Therefore, I had investigated other ways of publication. The matter had been taken up with Dr. Cattell, Editor of Science, who had offered to open his publication to a limited number of papers, provided that such publications increased the circulation of Science. Mr. Smith made a similar promise relative to publishing the papers in School Science and Mathematics, of which he was editor. These matters were put before the Section with the additional suggestion that another way of taking care of the publication of papers was to have an independent journal. At the close of the report it was suggested that we take a vote on the three different types of publications. Hence on reaching home I sent a circular letter to the 750 men and women who had declared themselves, through Dr. Parsons' office, interested in the Section of Chemical Education. This vote resulted in 56 per cent in favor of an independent journal. In view of this vote, I wrote to Dr. Parsons and acquainted him with the facts. In the same letter I asked if the American Chemical Society would be willing to back the Section to the extent of $5000 for a period of three years. This proved impossible, however, since the Directors of the Society had adopted a definite policy of not appropriating Society funds for special groups such as those represented in the Divisions and Sections. After receiving this letter I went to see Dr. Parsons personally. Dr. Howe happened to be in his office. I asked them what they thought about the possibility of getting some "ads" to help start the journal. Dr. Parsons asked how I expected to get "ads" until we
'Ibid.. 1.33
(1924)
had a journal to show. Turning to Dr. Howe, I asked him if he saw any harm in trying. Dr. Howe, in his usual good-natured, jovial manner, said he saw no harm but he thought Dr. Parsons was right. I then asked Dr. Parsons if he had any objections to trying. He said, "No, if you wish to 'hit your head against a stone wall,' go ahead, and if you do have a journal I will bet you the biggest dinner you can eat that you will not have more than 300 subscribers." On reaching home I made up a dummy journal, together with an advertising list covering full pages, half pages, quarter pages, etc. On Wednesday of that week I started for New York but decided to stop a t Philadelphia to see Arthur H. Thomas, who was a t that time president of the Arthur H. Thomas Company. Mr. Thomas was more than courteous and listened very attentively to my entire stoly about the Section (which he said he had been following with some interest). He said he believed we possibly should have an independent journal but said our advertising rates were too high. He suggested that we see C. C. Robinson, who was then president of the Chemical Catalogue Company and who a t that time had charge of the advertising for the Journal of Industrial and Engineer-
ing Chemistry. I followed his suggestion. After going over the matter with Mr. Robinson, I found that he agreed with Mr. Thomas about the rates. Hence he made out a new schedule which he thought was in keeping with the prospective circulation of the journal. After I thanked him and was part way across the room toward the door, he called me back and said he would like to be the h t one to sign up for an "ad" in this new journal. This was my first real thrill for the proposed journal, for I somehow felt that this introduction should be very helpful. My anticipation proved to be true. The two following days spent in New York resulted in signing up $2000 worth of advertising. Consequently my return to Baltimore was with a great deal of satisfaction. We reported the results a t once to Dr. Parsons and asked if he would be willing for us to start the journal if we did not expect the American Chemical Society to assume any financial responsibility. He said he would take i t up with the executive committee. He did, and in about ten days I received word from him to the effect that there was no objection, but that he wished to emphasize the fact that the American Chemical Society did not assume any financial responsibility, as stated in my letter. I thought the next step would be easy-that is, to get Edgar F. Smith, still chairman of the Section, to be the editor. Therefore, the next day, after receiving the letter from Dr. Parsons, I went to Philadelphia and presented the matter to Dr. Smith. He expressed delight that we had made so much progress but said he must decline the honor of being editor. He was thinking about getting out a journal on the history of chemistry and did not wish to become involved in a second one, partly because he felt he did not have the strength
for it, and partly because he thought it was better to keep the two journals independent of each other. The suggestion was made that he put his history of chernistry in with our journal, and he said emphatically, "No." He felt that if he were to do that, the history of chemistry would fall into the background and be more or less obliterated, and his purpose was to make the history of chemistry very prominent.* Dr. Smith, as most of you know, was one of the kindest men whom we have ever had in the Society but he was very definite in his ideas. Experience with him had taught me this. Hence I knew that further waiting was useless. As I left his office he said, "Why don't you do it yourself?" Turning, I told him that I did not feel equal to such a task, but on reaching home I realized a decision had to be made. Accordingly I sought counsel by requesting Mr. Segerblom, Dr. L. C. Newell, Dr. H. C. Sherman of Columbia, and Dr. R. E. Rose of the DuPont Company to meet me in New York, in order that we might work out some feasible plan for editorial work. Mr. Segerblom and Dr. Newel1 could not come to New York because of their scholastic duties, but I did have the privilege of talking the entire matter over with Dr. Sherman and Dr. Rose. They again encouraged me to go ahead as editor of the journal, saying they would help all they could, but neither wished to take the entire responsibility. Both cautioned me that we were taking on a very big financial responsibility. Since it was now December 10, a quick decision had to be made if we were to bring out the first issue with the beginning of the year. Mr. Mack, president of the Mack Printing Company, was asked to come to Baltimore. In the meantime I deaded to handle the editorial work in the manner set up in the first issue. That is, I would take the responsibility as editor-in-chief, provided that Dr. Rose and Dr. Sherman, who had already agreed to help, would become departmental editors for the industrial and college fields, respectively. I asked Mr. Segerblom to be responsible for the high-school chemistry, and Dr. William McPherson of Ohio State to be responsible for graduate chemistry. I was much elated when they all gave me affirmative replies. Then the idea came to me of having what we might call "contributing editors." These men were to be distributed in various parts of the United States so that there would be a steady flow of material from various localities. Furthermore, I felt that such representation would help the circulation in those various districts. I selected the very men who had been suggested for the correlation of high-school and college chemistry.6 These are the names which you will find in the fist issue. This group proved to be most helpful in many ways, as I shall mention later.
To make a long story short, let me say that through the help of Mr. Mack the first issue came out on schedule with only one flaw, but a very conspicuous one a t that: it did not carry any page numbers. To me this was most humiliating, but I was much consoled by a very friendly letter from Dr. Howe, who said that I should not worry because it was really the fault of the publishers. There was not much time to worry because the next issue had to be made ready for press, and so numbers 2, 3, 4, and 5 came out in rapid succession. While preparing the May issue I decided to drop those for July and August. I felt we would be justified in such omissions since many teachers would be away on vacations. To be perfectly frank, I was thinking more of getting a breathing spell. While I was preparing the September issue a man came into my office and introduced himself in such a way that I thought possibly he wasn't "all there." I did not have any reason tdchange my mind during his stay, for he asked what seemed to me foolish questions at that time. Later he proved to be much wiser than I anticipated. He left with only the remark that his name was Koehn and he lived in Washington. He had heard about the JOURNAL and was just looking around to see what the organization was. I forgot completely about this occurrence and went on with my crowded schedule. I began to realize that I had to have more help to continue this work. I had heard a great deal about Dr. Earle M. Billings of the Eastman Kodak Company, and had learned that he was very willing to help with promotional projects of this type. It occurred to me that he might be willing to act as secretary of the JOURNAL, thereby releasing me of much correspondence. For this reason I went by way of Rochester to the fall meeting of the h e r i c a n Chemical Society a t Ithaca, to see what we could do to get his help. I found that Dr. Billings possessed all the fine qualifications reported, for he consented to do what he could as seaetary to circulate the JOURNAL. Also I had learned a great deal about the educational interest of Ross A. Baker of Syracuse University. I stopped to see Ross and asked him what he thought about our making some plan for professors to exchange their positions during the year between various colleges and universities. He was delighted with the idea and said he would be very glad to assume a position in some other university for a year for the sake of getting the experience, provided his pay could be kept up to par (but with no objection to its being higher!). I mention this because it also had a large influence on later developments. On reaching Ithaca, I found the meeting was busy as usual in its various activities. However, with the help of Mr. Segerblom the financial report6 was prepared for the year and published in the h t volume, 'At a later date Dr. Smith agreed to publish papers on the along with the first constitution7 of the Division. I history of chemistry in the JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION,am proud to say that this first financial renort had a and requested that Dr. Newell be the deoartmental editor for this section of the J O ~ N A L . J. CHEM. EDUC.,1,33 (1924).
larger balance than shown. We made it this way in Baker, and he, in his usual cooperative manner, conorder that we might not he disappointed when the sented to come to Maryland to take over my teaching entire year rolled around. and assist me with the editorial work. He became At this Ithaca meeting we started the custom of known as "Sunny Jim," and was liked by everybody. having a dinner for the contrihuting editors at each I traveled from state to state, cooperating with the semiannual meeting, at which time we were to discuss contrihuting editors, who always had very fine audithe improvement of the JOURNAL. This proved to he a ences for me. At these meetings I placed before each most helpful group for developing the JOURNAL. While group three different types of organization: fist, a t the first contrihuting editors' meeting I received a an independent one, like that in the New .England telegram which read as follows: "Come to my office states; second, one associated with the State Teachers' as soon as work finished in Ithaca. Have an important Association; and third, one associated with the local matter to take up with you." Signed: "Francis P. section of the American Chemical Society. That year Garvan." resulted, first, in many state and local teachers' organiInstead of returning to Baltimore, I took the night zations, second, in a large increase in circulation of the train for New York. Who should meet me a t the train JOURNAL, and third, in acquiring much new material that morning hut Mk. Koehn, the man to whom I for publication. previously referred as the unknown man from WashingAs spring approached, Mr. Garvan called me again ton, whose conduct could not be explained at the time. to New York and in his ahrupt way said he wished me He took me to breakfast and told me something about to leave Maryland and come to New York to devote Mr. Garvan. He said that while Mr. Garvan was still my entire time to developing this JOURNAL; if I were in Europe he had sent him the copies of the JOURNAL to do so, he would give me $10,000 a year. I told him which he had obtained from me. In fact, Mr. Garvan that I was committed to the University of Maryland had just returned from Europe and had sent the tele- as chairman of the Chemistry Department; also I was gram as soon as he had come off the boat, i. e., before state chemist in Maryland, and therefore could not see he had even gone home. He said that Mr. Garvan how I could honorably leave at that time. However, was very much interested in this JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL I would think the matter over. EDUCATION and he was sure he wished to do somethinc. On my way back to Baltimore, I stopped off a t About ten o'clock he took me up to Mr. ~ a r v a 2 s Philadelphia and told Dr. Smith the entire circumoffice. The first thing Mr. Garvan asked, in his usual stances, asking for his advice. I shall always remember ahrupt manner, was, "What may I do for that JOURNAL Dr. Smith's look of surprise and his calm manner, OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION?"I told him that I was not which was always present. After a few minutes' sure there was very much he could do since the JOURNALhesitation he said, "Well, Neil, that's a fine offer, hut was balancing its budget. At this remark, he picked up my suggestion is to stick with your university." My from his desk the JOURNAL which had been sent him in high respect for Dr. Smith's opinion settled the matter Europe and asked me if we were proud of that issue. I as far as I was concerned. I returned home, not mentold him I was. He apologized for putting it just that tioning it to the university, and went on about my way and said he could see why I should he proud of it, work. but he wondered if we were satisfied to have a journal It came time for Dr. Baker to return to his home of that size. He asked if there weren't more material university, Syracuse, and I went to New York with Dr. that could be published; I told him yes, there probably Billings to go over the JOURNAL budget with Mr. Bufwas, and he said, "If there is, then we want the JOURNAL fum. At this meeting Mr. Buffum said that Mr. Garthree to ten times larger than this, and you proceed to van was still not satisfied with the size of the JOURNAL; make it larger." he wanted it even larger than we were making it. My Then he asked if there were anything else he could reply was that I simply could not put any more time do to help the circulation of the JOURNAL. I told him on it. At this remark, Mr. BnfTum left the room and we felt that there should be a better organization of the in a few minutes returned with Mr. Garvan. The chemistry teachers in the various states, that there was latter's response was, "I want you to be free to put an only one locality where they were well organized at unlimited amount of time on that JOURNAL. Since you that time-the New England states, where they had refuse to leave the university, I will pay your salary and been carefully organized by such men as Dr. Newel1 you remain at the university. That is, I wish to fix and Mr. Segerhlom. He requested that I make plans it in such a way that you will feel free to spend an unto visit the various states and do what I could to get limited amount of time with the JOURNAL, and if the them organized in every state. I told him I could not university does not have to pay your salary, they can do this without having somebody to take my work a t put some people on to do your work. You can still the University of Maryland. He asked if I knew of retain your position but receive no salary from the any man who could he obtained for such work. At university." I am trying to make this point clear, once the thought came to me that I might get Dr. for at one time there was criticism, stating that I was Baker of Syracuse, with whom I had talked on my receiving two salaries, one from the Chemical Foundawav to the Ithaca meetina. He said to ao ahead and tion and one from the universitv. see-what could he done. ftook the matter up with Dr. (Continued on page 405)
THE SECTION, DIVISION, AND JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION (Continuedfrom paze 372)
I took this matter up with Dr. Woods, president of the University of Maryland, who consented to carry out the matter in the way suggested by Mr. Garvan. He appointed Professor Broughton as associate head of the department and Mr. Leslie Bopst as associate state chemist, thus relieving me of all such duties. The JOURNAL ran on, increasing in size and circula-
tion during these first nine years of its existence; the number of pages printed per year had increased from two hundred to three thousand, and the circulation from zero to nine thousand. For this we owe a great vote of thanks to Francis P. Garvan. I would also like to express my deepest appreciation for the editorial help of Dr. Otto Reinmuth and Miss Mildred Gramin.
