SERIOUS PROBLEMS OF SCIENCE TO-DAY
By Charles Baskerville, Ph.D.,
Professor of Chemistry, the College of the City of New York.
Dr. Charles Baskerville, whom we present this month to our readers, belongs to the younger generation of Southern men who are giving evidence of their capacity for leadership in fields other than political and forensic. Born in Mississippi in 1870, he is now, at the age of thirty-five, head of the Department of Chemistry in the College of the City of New York. After his graduation at the University of Virginia, he spent some time studying in Germany, and was called upon his return to the University of North Carolina, where he occupied the chair of chemistry. He is the author of a text-book on chemistry, and has written numerous articles on scientific, educational and technological subjects. He has distinguished himself in the field of original research and experiment, and belongs of right to the select band of scientific men who in these latter days, are so eagerly bringing to the light the laws that govern phenomena in the wonderful world of Nature.
The world to the human interpreter appears as a paradox of complexes. Scientific progress, during late years, has not been along the lines of the least resistance. One who has to do with the problems of nature is fascinated by the difficulties. Lord Rayleigh attached this motto to his recently issued, but already famous, “Collected Papers:”
“The works of the Lord are great
Sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.”
To be sure, the gratification of overcoming obstacles is often the only compensation.
Science has a wide range in the size and nature of the things with which it deals. With the microscope, it enlarges for vision the unseen world of bacterial life; with the telescope it draws the celestial bodies near and interrogates them with the spectroscope; it drags the lifeless element from the inanimate world, curiously plays with it and then puts it to man’s use, while seeking his origin and forcing him ever to show cause for his existence and right to question.