Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy based on excellence of performance.

For his accomplishments in chemistry he was awarded the American Chemical Society's Nichols Medal in 1932Columbia University's Chandler Medal in 1932 and the American Chemical Society's highest honor the Priestley Medal in 1944. He aboliJames Bryant Conantd athletic scholarships and instituted an "up or out" policy under which scholars who were not promoted were terminated. In 1925 he visited Germany then the heart of chemical research for eight months.

Graduating from Harvard with a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1916 Conant served in the U. He studied the biochemistry of oxyhemoglobin providing insight into the disease methemoglobinemia helped to explain the structure of chlorophyll and contributed important insights that underlie modern theories of acid-base chemistry.