| |
In autumn of 1907, William Albert Noyes
was brought to this campus as Professor of Chemistry and Director
of the Chemical Laboratory. The building is named after him because
he brought the first touch of greatness to that discipline on the
University of Illinois campus. Noyes was 50 years old. He had a
background in teaching (Minnesota, Tennessee, and Rose Poly) and
in government work (the National Bureau of Standards). He was an
internationalist, having lived in Munich (1889) and having been
a member of the Chemische Gesellshaft and the Societé de
Chimie Industrielle, and he was an editor (the American Chemical
Society Journal, Chemical Abstracts, Chemical Monographs, and
Chemical Reviews).
 |
|
| William Albert Noyes |
|
I do not go back that far, but sometime after I had come to Urbana,
Illinois, unauspiciously in 1942, I was assigned space in the prior
office/laboratory of W. A. Noyes in the northwest corner of the
first floor. His samples of camphor and camphoric acid were still
there in the cupboard under the hood. His widow, his third wife,
still lived in the family house at 1105 Nevada Street, and that
is where Lennie Miller and his beginning family first lived as renter-custodians.
Professor Fuson got along with W. A. Noyes, he said, by willingly,
or perhaps blindly, signing the many petitions that were thrust
in front of him. As I said, W. A. Noyes was
an internationalist; he was also a "mover," and he was
blind to color. He knew the American chemical scene very well.
When Roger Adams took over as Head of the Department
in 1926, Adams stated his avowed purpose of improving the quality
of the graduate students in Chemistry. Thus, he did not take too
seriously the application of a young man at a small college in Indiana
who was uncertain as to whether he wanted to be a scientist or a
football coach. Noyes, however, urged Adams to offer Wendell M.
Stanley a teaching assistantship because he had great faith in the
Earlham professor's recommendation of Stanley and of other applicants
before him. "Take Stanley this year and then start improving
the quality of the graduate students next year" was Noyes'
amusive advice to Adams. Twenty years later, Wendell Stanley shared
the Nobel Prize for research on the structure of the tobacco mosaic
virus. He was Illinois' only Nobel Laureate for some time!
 |
| Nevil V. Sidgwick
and Roger Adams, 1948 |
Much has been written about Roger Adams, but I
simply quote from the citation of 1964 when he was awarded the National
Medal of Science:
 |
|
"For superb contributions [to chemistry] as a scientist,
teacher, and imaginative leader in furthering the constructive
interaction of academic and industrial scientists." |
I obtained approval from William Albert Noyes, Jr., to publish an
80th Birthday Greeting to Roger Adams in the Journal of the
American Chemical Society. When I had written it, I decided
to show it to Dr. Adams for correction and approval, for I knew
that he liked neither surprises nor inaccuracies, and it was duly
published in 1969. The definitive biography of "The Chief"
was written by the Tarbells and was published in 1981.
My first writing experience with Dr. Adams took place in 1943.
We met for a Sunday lunch in August at the (then) Men's Faculty
Club, and he asked me how my postdoctoral research was coming along.
I told him I had completed the required alkaloid synthesis, to which
he responded enthusiastically: "Write up the experimental in
JACS style and bring it along to the house this evening."
That was not what I had originally planned to do on a Sunday afternoon,
but the evening writing of the descriptive section of the article
went smoothly, assisted by our consumption of a large bag of popcorn.
I bargained for a little more time before submission of the article
in order to establish the stereochemistry of our product, and that
worked out very well within the next month. Dr. Adams had indicated
what a real devotee of organic chemistry could or should do on a
Sunday afternoon and evening in the summer! Later, when I was on
my own as a beginning staff member, I sought advice from senior
staff members to supplement my initial writing efforts. I remember
well three bits of advice that I took to heart.
Harold Snyder, upon reading one of my early efforts,
questioned a statement I had made: "Johnson opined that..."
etc., etc. He said he knew Jack Johnson very well and doubted that
he ever "opined" anything. Thus ended my attempt to incorporate
unusual words in that paper or in other papers that followed. The
message imparted was to state things simply, understandably, and
in every-day language. Carl (Speed) Marvel read another of my early
papers in manuscript and concluded that I was trying to prove two
major points. His message was that I should compose the results
in two separate papers because readers seldom remembered more than
one conclusion from a single paper.
R.C. Fuson offered to criticize a review paper I had written. When
I returned to his office to obtain his recommendations, I was very
disappointed because he offered no substantive revisions at all,
yet I knew my first attempt at reviewing all known information about
a particular series of compounds could not have been that perfect.
I was about to leave when I told him that I was disappointed because
I had really come to him for instructive, serious criticism. "Oh,
in that case...," he said as he opened his desk drawer and
withdrew two sheets of handwriting. Fuson indicated that my writing
was like a collection of reference cards. Improvements were suggested
to omit the dates (years) of publication, as well as the locations
and names of the authors, with which I had started each paragraph.
Instead, the subject matter was supposed to guide the ending of
one paragraph and the beginning of the next, so that the article
"flowed." Terminal references would disclose all the details
of origin. In the rewrite, the pedantic, unimaginative collation
of data was converted to a critical, adhering discussion. Fuson
sometimes wrote verse under the name Robert Fox. The surname could
be applied in this case of requested and reluctantly supplied advice.
I followed that advice in all my later writings in which I was recounting
prior scientific history. By the time I had absorbed these writing
lessons, I had the temerity to rewrite a joint paper that my senior
colleague Charlie Price had presented to me in first draft and on
which I was supposed to be a co-author.
Whenever Roger Adams in a note or in conversation with you, started
out with "it has come to my attention," you knew you might
be in for a spot of trouble. My first IHCTMA referred to my impatience
with certain secretaries and storeroom clerks and my voluble complaints
against them. Adams pointed out to me that, as employees of the
State of Illinois, they had tenure; as an assistant professor, I
did not. "Was that clear?" Then, he relented and invited
me to come into his office with any legitimate complaint and to
pound on his desk. He said, "I have tenure, and I can do something
about a staff member's deficiency." I never had to pound on
his desk. When I rose (slowly, it may be added) to the status of
membership of the Graduate College Faculty, I was able to accept
the talented graduate students who were suddenly available in large
numbers. After 13 had started to work with me, Professor Adams,
in a second IHCTMA, indicated that the number seemed excessive.
I believe I answered rather naively that I had several more exciting
research ideas to offer to graduate students. He then pointed out
the difficulties of starting such a large number at one time, of
directing their work from day to day, of substituting new research
ideas for those problems that would falter, of supporting so many,
and of finishing off their Ph.D. degrees, including reading and
correcting their theses and conducting their final exams. Additionally,
Adams suggested that a more rational number of graduate students
to accept in one year could be obtained by dividing the number of
organic chemists entering graduate school by the number of faculty
members who could direct their research. All of that advice made
good sense, and I have given it to junior colleagues whenever it
seemed appropriate.
If Dr. Adams found his students engaged in a poker game in the
laboratory when he visited them on a Saturday or Sunday, he would
ask to sit in on the game. Invariably, the students would discover
that it was wicked to gamble (and lose). When I asked permission
to be away from Urbana in February, 1947, to travel to New York
City to meet my fiancée, who was arriving from The Netherlands
via Sweden by ship, he asked whether I had arranged for Bob Frank
to do substitute lecturing for me. When I answered that I had taken
care of all my teaching obligations, he responded with "You
must meet your fiancée if she is indeed coming to America
for the first time!" I thought I was safely on my way; however,
just as I reached the door of his office, he said, "Oh, Nelson,
I am chairman of the program committee of the Urbana Rotary Club
this Spring. Would you be willing to sing at one of our luncheon
meetings?" Yes, I was willing! It was with some poignancy that
I relate his last words to me. He was terminally ill with cancer
in a nursing home, and his daughter Lucile was spoon-feeding him
baby food. When I came into the room, he said between spoonfuls,
"Nels, I would ask you to share my lunch, but I don't think
you would like it."
Next page>>
|
