SKETCH OF FRANK WIGOLESWORTH CLARKE, in 



Professor Claeke was born in Boston, March 14, 1847, and was 

 graduated from the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard Univer- 

 sity in 1867. Two years later, in 1869, he was appointed instructor 

 in chemistry in Cornell University, the first assistant ever appointed 

 at that institution. His next position was that of professor of chem- 

 istry and physics in Howard University, Washington, in 1873 and 

 1874. In the latter year he became professor of chemistry and 

 physics in the University of Cincinnati, in a position which he held 

 till 1883, when he became chief chemist to the United States Geo- 

 logical Survey and honorary curator of minerals in the United States 

 National Museum, where he still remains. 



Professor Clarke, having become a member of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science in 1869, assisted, in 

 1875— '76, in the organization of its section on chemistry, a branch 

 which had theretofore been but little represented in the Proceedings 

 of the association. Prof. S. W. Johnson was elected chairman of 

 the new section for the meeting in 1876 at Detroit, and Professor 

 Clarke was commissioned to make the necessary efforts to insure a 

 full attendance of chemists and others interested in the applications 

 of chemistry. In 1888 he presided over the section; and he has 

 ever been active in building it up, and in the development of the 

 American Chemical Society. 



Professor Clarke has published about seventy-five scientific 

 papers in various journals, and many popular articles, especially in 

 Appletons' Journal and the Popular Science Monthly. His first sci- 

 entific paper, A New Process in Mineral Analysis, was published 

 in the American Journal of Science for March, 1869. Other im- 

 portant papers have related to analytical methods, to the constitu- 

 tion of the tartrates of antimony, and to topics on chemical min- 

 eralogy, including especially the constitution of the silicates. 



Many of his popular articles relate to educational affairs, and 

 present forcible arguments for a fuller recognition of science in the 

 course of instruction, and cogent demonstrations of the need of 

 better teaching of science and better qualified teachers. When occa- 

 sion has arisen, he has fearlessly exposed and denounced humbug 

 in education. In a paper on The Higher Education, published in 

 the seventh volume of the Popular Science Monthly, having defined 

 the purpose of true education as being " to develop the mind; to 

 strengthen the thinking faculties in every possible direction; to 

 render the acquisition of new knowledge easier and surer; to in- 

 crease the student's resources; and to render him better fitted for 

 dealing with the useful affairs of the world," he sets forth the advan- 

 tages of science over the ancient and even the modern languages for 

 the accomplishment of it. Science, he reasons, furnishes as good 



