Evening star., 1927-04-03

YHEN / think OF the way In wnlcn
M mankind in general takes the gifts
" Of science, gifts actual and gifts
conditional there comes back to
mind my own perhaps earliest encounter with
these gifts. 1t took the form Of box entitled,
II remember rightly, THE Young Chemist
an inexpensive box with ungrammatical and
badly printed instructions FOR eliciting the
wonders of science to "the delight of all be-
holders" who could be induced to behold.
We evoked "a lead tree" which In practice
proved to be mere Seeding that damped Off.
and some sluggish gunpowder and several very
gratifying stinks and smells, and we wound UP
by mixing everything ana preparing for stu
pendous crash that never occurred.
And another very early gift was telephone
made of two plboxes and a tightly stretched
length of cotton thread between.
still recall the sense of wonder Of passing
beyond common experience during those pioneer
experiments with this great modern conven-
ience. My elder brother and I were to COM
municate secretly and marvelously by this in
strument. / had no doubt and he had no doubt
that things would vibrate along that stretched
cotton altogether lovelier and livelier than the
common speech and whispers of every day.
*
He went to upper window, from which he
shouted directions to me through the vulgar
air, and / stood down in the back yard The
apparatus was adjusted and prepared to hear
such things as had never heard before. My
brother up above was seen to whisper, IT can't
hear anything called back You haven't
got it tight enough said my brother. and he
tried again. Still no elin voices. Tighter"
yelled my brother with that familiar note Of
fraternal threatening in his voice. I made
desperate effort. And the bottom came out OF
the pillbox! My brothers head disappeared
from the window and inferred that he was
coming downstairs
Then. as now, hated controversy. I was
the nearer to the front door. went Off at
once for a nice long Solifarv walk
\ X
Since those early days science has showered
its gifts upon my world and me. Science as
sisted by invention-and stimulated by
mercial enterprise. realized that the young
chemist" and the pilIbox telephone came only
indirectly from the sublimated common sense
of mankind. Science may illuminate and reveal
and state and develop and suggest but some
thing is needed in the recipient before even
half grown box of Chemicals" can be made
to yield its best results.
To the incurably puerile. like Messrs Abery
and Winston Churchill, chemistry will never be
more than a search for stinks of offense and a
chemical industry that produce the love-
liest colors; exqusitely and subtly useful sub,
stances and the most enrichng fertilizers will
be merely the necessary source OF explosives
and poison gas And to the world at large the
possibility Of radating and receiving electro
magnetic waves means almost exactly what the
promise Of that pillbox telephone conveyed to
my childish inagination--the hope OF an un-
defined wonder followed by disillusionment
1t must be almost half q century since the
wireless transmission OF electric phases was
understood to be possible and only within the
present century that wireless telegraphy has
been practical reality. The wireless telephone
and all the broadcasting business is postwar
outbreak. 1t came with Mile. Suzanne Lenglen
to distract the democratic mind from the far
too difficult problems Of organizing world peace
We dropped that fatiguing and contentious sub.
ject until after the next war, and went outside
to fix our aerials between the chimney and the
old fir tree.
And when 1t was fxed we were just going to
sit down to listen and listen. We should hear