Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - Ceramic Engineering - Journal Article [PAGE 10]

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TBS

JOURNAL

OF

INDUSTRIAL

tND ENGINEERING

CHEMISTRY

Vol. 9, No. 1

cumulative effect. They have learned to glory In the upbuilding of their art as an Art Indeed. The Almighty has prepared the material in abundance. In the great laboratory of Nature, He ground it with mighty glaciers, chemicalized it through countless ages, washed it, spread it out, compressed it under millions of tons pressure and covered it over deeply for man's use when required. Men have constantly labored and schemed with this crude material. They have dug deep but, as yet, have only scratched the surface. They have mixed one clay with another clay and have thus improved their wares by the mixing process. They have earnestly and faithfully sought to find out and follow Nature's Laws and have broadened from ancient usage radically in publishing their findings for the good of the Art and for the benefit of those coming after. The active work of the American Ceramic Society and the work done in the Ceramic Departments of our State Universities have done much and will yet accomplish wonders in the clay art in the future history of our country. The names of Orton and Bleininger will be spoken in reverence by the workers in clay in generations yet to come. The taking of a crude, waste material and making it into a thing of utility and beauty is indeed something of which to be proud The digger of the clay, working with the pugger, the presser, the chemist, the modeller and the burner, all working earnestly and honestly, each giving the very best there is in him, will produce useful and beautiful wares, as yet undreamed of, out of this hidden, unused

extend over quite a period of lima, J he experiment started to-day may require a week or a month or more. The intimate chemical changes that occur when the material Is molten are very perplexing and Intricate To all the complexity of mixtures of flint and spar, of flux and frit, there is added that of color, for the production of which the ceramist's palette is extremely limited. Only a few metallic oxides will withstand the heat and even these are of, a most erratic nature, as for instance copper which is capable of making black, blue, green or red according to the atmosphere in which it is produced. But ceramic research is not confined to chemistry. Engineering and general management enter largely into the field of this research. Large quantities of crude material must be handled, must be plentifully and economically provided and, to this end, there must be the most intelligent treatment. Machinery must be largely used and great intelligence exercised in its construction and employment. Men must be selected for the various places and as nothing varies more than men, very great intelligence must be exercised in their selection and placing. The right man in the wrong place or the wrong man in the right place is as disastrous with men as with machines, so a properly balanced working plant for manufacture is really a complicated mechanism, and like any other complex piece of machinery, a bad cog in the wheel will throw the whole out of gear and stop all perfect working of the machine. Beyond these generally recognized essentials of ceramic re*

U N I V E R S I T Y OP ILLINOIS

T H I R D F L O O R P L A N , CERAMIC E N G I N E E R NO BUILDING,

material that has so long been waiting under the prairies of Illinois. Lying crude and hidden, the material does no one any good. He who fashioned it, who so patiently prepared it and laid it away, left it lacking in admixture with one thing in particular—brains. Unless mixed with these it will never come into its own. The clays must be good and the brains must be good, and the mixture must be right. Both may be good but lack the mixture. In Italy, to-day, there is crude clay, still in the bank, from beside which other d a y was dug five hundred years ago. That other clay, under the touch of Delia Robbia, grew into a beauty that has placed it, worth its weight in gold, yes priceless, treasured in the choicest museums of the world, while this undug clay, untouched by a skilled band, unmixed with brain, remains inert, despised, unused, awaiting the touch of another hand to bring it into the life, the individuality, that shall make of it a thing of beauty, shall fix into it the vigor and enthusiasm of him who fashions it into lasting beauty. So there lies all under this State of Illinois a wealth of this crude material waiting the touch that shall give it life and beauty. I believe that the men who will do this arc those that shall go out from this school with brain skilled and trained for that work, working, not blindly us of old, but with trained intelligence. Ceramic research has largely to do with chemistry. The various admixtures are formed when the materials arc cold but the chemical changes occur when heated to a high degree of beat and art hence shut out of sight. They also, necessarily,

search there is another, often missed in the general summing up but of the utmost importance, that of Art. Unless it have artistic beauty, no matter how skillfully compounded, the product will be a failure. The primitive Indian woman, fashioning the first clay pot, forming it for ordinary domestic use, recognized this requirement, shaping it to pleasant form in lines of beauty. Having so formed the first she soon progressed to adding something of ornament by scratching an ornamental design in that universal, never ceasing, effort to add beauty to utility. This effort of the first worker has never stopped but has acquired momentum as the years passed. Beauty has been a protection as well. Many of the relics that tell us of the dead and buried past are very fragile, not the big heavy affairs but delicate, breakable but beautiful things whose beauty appealed to all and for which they were prized and protected. I look forward confidently to the time when this will be better recognized and when this University will have a distinct department, housed in this beautiful clay building, in this clay State, in which talented, enthusiastic artists will lead and teach eager pupils in modeling clay Into lasting beauty. Illinois has, I am sure, undeveloped Delhi Robbias In plenty and they only need encouragement and instruction to bring them out. If we can not do this work ourselves, If we have not the hand trained to the magic touch, if we have not the eye to see the hidden beauty in this crude material, if we cannot materialize the hidden beauty ourselves, if we have not the brain nor the training required, to bring out its beauty