FLIGHT FROM CHAOS

The Chemistry Department of the University occupies a position apart, because of its organization. All subjects requiring laboratories display a certain degree of cold, mechanical artificiality in their departmental arrangements. The complicated functions of a system containing scientific instruments of value, and large floor space, demand centralized control. But the Chemistry Department has gone further than this. The formalities of the various courses are gone through with the aid of awesome printed forms, all of the same general type. The laboratories are all the same, are governed by the same regulations, and in every case are run with astounding efficiency. The department is, in short, a smoothly functioning bureaucracy.

The student accustomed to the easy-going, good-hearted manners of the Biological laboratories is near prostration at his first glimpse of the inner workings in the domain of chemistry. He has lived from hand to mouth, intellectually speaking, and is suddenly forced to conform to rule in every breath he takes. This tends to destroy the precious faculty of indifference and is discouraging. But an even worse effect of the department's callousness is the harm it does to what the undergraduate regards as "academic leisure": instead of being delightfully at his ease, the student of chemistry is made to work in an unending round of fixed appointments.

In spite of all murmuring, the chemistry bureaucrats will continue on their way. The method has the great advantage of taking trouble off the shoulders of the faculty, and of conserving time. In this respect, it is a plan which might well be followed by other sections of the University, where no exam is ever graded on time, and where the rule is made to fit the case as it arises, with consequent loss of time and money. Sentimental lovers of the calm and gentle may grumble, and cling to their outworn ways; the cold, gem-like flame that animation the bowels of Converse will burn on, unflickering.