The Education of a Chemist 1

Abstract

THE education of a chemist (and the word “chemist,” of course, includes the qualification “technical chemist”) must be conceived in the sense that it consists in an effort to produce an attitude of mind, rather than to instil definite knowledge. Of course the latter must not be neglected; the definite knowledge may be likened to the bricks which the architect has at his disposal in erecting a beautiful building; he knows their shapes, their capacity for resisting stresses, and, in short, what can be done with them. But the conception of the design is the result of many attempts to create.; just as the poet has to utilise words, or the architect bricks, so the chemist has to know the materials with which he is dealing. The training of a bricklayer, however, will never make a man an architect; nor will the dry research of a grammarian train a poet. In short, it is the inventive faculty which must be cultivated.