Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - New Chemistry Building [PAGE 42]

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" U N P A I D RKSEARCH" NEEDS APPRECIATION

Under such a classification, the p a r t of research I am most interested in promoting is what we may call the unpaid kind, not because it is cheapest, but because it is the most valuable. It is most neglected, most poorly understood, most in need of appreciative support in America. The separate industries do not need encouragement in research nearly so much as the nation needs it. The industries can be depended on to estimate its value to them, for they take annual inventories. But a country which keeps no books, seems to have to depend on accident for its most valuable research work. I t seems to me t h a t many of our American colleges have been shortsighted in this respect. This may be explained b y the rapidly increasing demand in our growing industries for analytical chemists and chemical engineers, who could at once meet the existing industrial requirements. This demand has kept the chemical departments of our colleges and technical schools very busy with the elementary and analytical side of chemistry and left little room for the synthetical or experimental side. It has also naturally tended toward the development of highly efficient organizations, equipments and corps of instructors for ' t h e preparation of the one type of chemist, b u t this very success seems frequently to make impracticable t h e training of men for research. The conscientious American professor has usually devoted his life t o bringing his students up to a certain promising stage of interest in science and experiment, only to see t h e m scatter before they have had any experience in questioning Nature, or have tried any unbeaten p a t h of chemical byway. While I am greatly interested in what might be done for science by technical research laboratories in t h e industries, I am sure t h a t the university must be the important factor in guiding the pioneer work if we are t o be a sufficiently advancing nation. Let me recall recent words of President Wilson: "I know I reflect your feeling and the feeling of all our citizens when I say the only thing I am afraid of is not being ready to perform our duty. I am afraid of the danger of shame. I am afraid of the danger of inadequacy. I am afraid of the danger of not being able to express the correct character of the country with tremendous might and effectiveness whenever we are called upon to act in the field of the world's affairs." These words ring true. The American spirit is characterized by them. But think further a moment. They refer to a fear based upon an entirely corrigible

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