CHEMICAL EXERCISES FOR ORDINARY SCHOOLS. 523 



but, in the common mode of pursuing it, the pupil gets but very 

 little real knowledge of the subject. lie reads about it ; learns les- 

 sons upon it ; works out chemical calculations for examination ; and, 

 perhaps, sees some lecture-room experiments. He acquires some gen- 

 eral ideas, but he gets very little actual, thorough, practical knowledge 

 of the properties of chemical substances, and no such familiarity with 

 chemical operations as is necessary in order to turn this branch of 

 study to valuable account. Professor Rains saw that all this was 

 unsatisfactory ; and that, to make his knowledge good for anything, 

 the pupil must experiment, must test the properties of substances, and 

 himself find out how they behave and react toward each other. In 

 short, if he has any honest, intelligent, educational purpose in view, 

 he can only gain it by practice and direct experience with chemical 

 agents and materials. 



But there is a difficulty at the outset met everywhere, and which 

 is generally fatal to all thorough chemical study in ordinary schools. 

 Practical chemistry is dirty work. It makes slops and fumes, and 

 damages furniture and clothing, and, as has been graphically said, it 

 is altogether an unsavory affair of "messes and stenches." With such 

 a reputation it is, of course, held to be unsuited to the schoolroom, 

 which indulges no further in dirt than is compelled by the use of 

 chalk and the blackboard. In this respect school habits are estab- 

 lished. Practical chemistry must, therefore, have its separate place, 

 its laboratory, which is a shop and not a schoolroom. Chemistry in- 

 volving " exercises," or manipulations in object-study, is therefore ex- 

 pelled from the schoolroom to a place fitted up for it, so that chemistry 

 in ordinary schools is a matter of book-learning and second-hand infor- 

 mation, such as is now correctly characterized as " sham knowledge." 



Professor Rains has addressed himself to this difficulty, which he 

 aims to overcome so effectually that practical chemistry may be pur- 

 sued almost anywhere with but very little inconvenience. He saw 

 that this is the first and indispensable step to success in making chemis- 

 try a real branch of common education ; and he accordingly set him- 

 self to contrive a little compact, portable laboratory, such as can be 

 readily used anywhere, and would at the same time prove adequate for 

 the uses of the student. And he has well succeeded in his object. The 

 accompanying woodcut represents his device. It consists of a revolving 

 test-stand, twenty or twenty-four inches in diameter, made of galvan- 

 ized iron or strong tin-plate, so as to hold a large number of test- 

 bottles, containing the reagents for analysis. These bottles stand side 

 by side, and are kept in position by an outside and inside rim, soldered 

 to the circular plate. There is a hole in the center of this plate, and 

 a tube, fifteen inches long, has its lower end soldered above it, the 

 upper end being closed. An iron rod, screwed into a stand or base, 

 and conical at the top, passes up through the tube and supports the 

 whole upon its point. To stiffen the arrangement, three bent strips 



