Evening Star Newspaper, January 19, 1930, Page 93

dHE SUN AY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., JANUARY 19, 1930. WHAT NEXT In the Age of Science? Television is almost certain to be a reality. Do not be surprised if in 10 vyears you will be able to scc what is happening sn India. The greatest advance in the next decade will come from the field of medicine. From such research work as is being done by such organiza- tions as the Rockefeller Institute will come marvelous developments beneficial to the health of mankind. —Dr. Oskar von Miller. N AN age that has produced, within a few decades, the automobile, the air- plane, the radio, the motion picture and countless other new marvels of science, what is left for the ingenuity of man’s mind to perfect. What miracles im- pend? Dr. Oskar von Miller, one of the foremost $ndustrial engineers of Europe, founder and director of the German Museum of Industries and Science at Munich—the most unique in- stitution of its kind in the world—hesitates to hazard a forecast. “The present is so wonderful as compared to the past,” says Dr. von Miller, “I do not feel free to predict what may be achieved in the future. One hundred years from now—who can tell? A century ago Lavoisier was laying the foundations of chemistry. If you had asked him, could he possibly have foretold the Roentgen ray, the cinema, the ultra-violet ray, the talking pictures or television?” Touring the world, Dr. von Miller stopped off recently in the United Stat:s, en route from Japan to his home in Germany, to lend as- sistance to the movement in the United States to establish a number of museums, modeled along the lines of his own Munich Museum, which will house representative exhibits of im- portant technical and scientific development— records of industrial history which will honor the inventive genius of America and afford mankind a complete history of mechanical evolution from the stone age to the machine age. “I am an engineer, not a socioligist or a politician, so I cannot prophesy,” said Dr. von Miller whimsically, in New York, just before sailing for Munich. Only on two lines would the German savant venture a definite surmise. Television came first, “CONSIDERING what already has been done, it is almost certain to be a reality— and very shortly,” he said. *“Do not be sur- prised if in 10 years from now you will be able to se> what is happening in India.” On the second point he was more positive— that the greatest advances in the next decade will come within the field of medicine. “Whils considerable progress has been made,” he explained, “medicine has not gone forward to the extent of other sciences because doctors have concentrated upon practical problems and pure reszarch has been neglected. “In physics and electricity startling progress has bcen possible because the research work of the pure scientists has developed facts that could be conv:rted to practical use. This type of investigation is a comparatively new de- delopment in medicine. “For example, I saw in the Rockefeller Insti- tute a series of experim:nts which are being made on the blood. Similar work is being done in Germany, and from such investigations there will come marvelous devilopments bene- ficial to th> health of mankind.” Nearly & half century ago Dr. von Miller Dr. Oskar Von Miller, European Engineer and Founder of Munich Muscum, Talks About the Achievements of Tomorrow, A sketch of the main entrance of the industrial museum that is to be erected in Philadelphia to the memory of Benjamin Franklin, whose statue is shown in the foreground. made his first visit to America. That was in 1883, when the first electric plant was being started in New York and when he obtained from Thomas A. Edison the rights to install a plant in Germany. His second visit was in 1913. Four years ago he came over again, on invitation of an American committee for the organization of technical museums. Each time he noted the growing changes in America. What pleased him most upon the occasion of his recent visit was the rapid de- velopment of his own pet idea—the industrial museum—which he believes is destined to play a more important part in the education of mankind, each such institution bcing an en- larged laboratory in which the’ masses may study for themselves the workings of scicnce and industry. “The United States,” said Dr. von Miller, “by extolling the museum idea, is enabling the people to understand that the age in which they live is not based on miracles, but on the knowledge of facts which scientists and in- ventors have added from generation to gener- ation. And you will build better museums than the D:utsches Museum in Munich, for you have th> money and the brains.” While in America, Dr. von Miller discussed with Julius Rosenwald, in Chicago, plans for the Museum of Science and Industry, toward which the philanthropist has given $3,000,000 and which eventually will cost about $30,000,- 000. The City of Chicago has placed at the disposal of the project one of the large build- ings used during the Chicago World Fair. Rufus Dawes and Samuel Insull are also interested in the Chicago museum. IN Philadelphia the Munich visitor was the guest of honor at a dinner given by Cyrus H. K. Curtis, wh>n the plans of a new $5,000,- 000 memorial to Benjamin Franklin, to be erected on the Quaker City’s beautiful new parkway, in co-operation with the Franklin Institute, were revealed. This project will b2 in the form of a permanent industrial and scientific museum embodying many of the fea- tures of the Munich Museum. Journeying to New York, Dr. von Miller was the guest of Felix Warburg and heard about the new Museum of Peaceful Arts, now tem- porarily housed in the home of the Scientific American, soon to be moved into new quarters on Forty-second street, and eventually to have a splendid home all its own. Also, while in America, Dr. von Miller heard about Henry Ford’s museum, centering around the life of Thomas A. Edison, already well under way. In each case he was consulted in an advisory capacity. Believing with Dr. von Miller that the history of any art, science or industry can best be learned if its development is illustrated in an objective manner, backers of these various new American museums propose to model their projects after the Munich Museum. In the latter are permanent exhibits touching these industrial and peaceful arts—<lectricity, steam, astronomy, navigation, safety appliances, aviation, mechanical arts, agriculture, mining, labor, health and hygiene, textiles, ceramics and clay, architecture, scenic embellishment, gardening, roads and road-building materials, printing and books, commerce and trade. Imagine a plant covering 10 acres, divided into 61 sections, having 60,000 separate exhibits stretched over 9 miles of aisles, and you have a pen picture of the Munich Museum. Visiting the Kensington Museum, London, in 1900, and after studying the Watt engine, Dr. von Miller believed he could improve upon the idea. Only a dream in the beginning, but today he is heralded as the founder of the world's greatest museum. Laughingly he vefers to himself as “the world’s champion beggar” in telling how he built it. He begged an island from the City of Munich in the Isar River. He begged stone from quarries, steel from the steel corporations, building materials from those who sold lime, wood, plaster and paint, and then persuadsd the working people of the town to make a free contribution of their labor on evenings and week ends until the museum was a fimished job. And then he begged the exhibits from all the great technical plants of Germany, and when he was ready to reveal his grandiose project to the public he had something new in the world—a museum of 60,000 exhibits, alive with machinery, in which the people touch, handle and move the exhibits, and which shows, step by step, how the brains of men, beginning with the wheel, the floating log, the stone ax, have achieved the modern wonders of science. With a population under 1,000,000, the Munich Museum is visited by an average of 8,000 persons a day. The idea is to show the ascent of man from savagery to modern science and engineering, lay bare all the mys- teries of the industrial processes and let the child or the adult learn with the eye and the hand just how scientists made their discoveries of the forces of nature and how these forces were harnessed in inventions to create civiliza~ tion. OR instance, the American museums expect to include a planetarium, a structure domed like the heavens with the planets and thou- sands of stars. By proper manipulation of machinery one sees in 15 minutes the motions - which the universe performs in the course of a year. And in that quarter of an hour adults as well as children can learn more about astronomy than they could learn in a year of hard reading of books. The museum, as Dr. von Miller conceives 3t, is more than a storehouse showing different models of machinery; it is a dynamic picture in which even youngsters and laymen can understand the workings of the brains of genius and talent. Chicago, for instance, expects to include in its museum a laboratory which may be a reproduction of that in which Faraday worked. Apparatus will be there similar to that of the great experimenter. The visitor will be per- mitted to repeat Faraday’'s experiments and learn just how Faraday discovered electro- magnetic induction. From electromagnetic induction to the dynamo and the central power station, superpower linkages and the whole network of modern distribution of electricity are but a few steps. The visitor can grasp the whole evolution of the electrical age. Dr. von Miller believes that these dynamic museums, besides being a great force in the education of the people to understand the world in which they live, will also increase a respect for the achievements of scientists. ‘While the Deutsches Museum has more thamn Continued on Twentieth Page.