LIEBIG' S SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENTS. 



67 



comrades for supposing that the professors would 

 show them the right methods, and so turn them 

 into professors too. Goethe makes Mephistophe- 

 les say to Faust, " You must not give the fellows 

 the best of what you know." Liebig reversed the 

 dictum, saying, in effect, " All that I myself can 

 do the fellows, too, must learn." 



When the Giessen school was at the height 

 of its fame, many of the university professors 

 were of opinion that Liebig was making a mis- 

 take, and lowering the dignity of science. One 

 distinguished chemist and professor seriously 

 thought that he was simply ruining the prospects 

 of some dozen young men every year by putting 

 it into their heads to become chemists, for what 

 was the use of so many of them ? They would 

 never be able to find anything to do, and would 

 take to evil courses. But Liebig was not to be 

 turned aside from his own path, and before long, 

 numerous as were his pupils, he was unable to 

 supply the demand for chemists from his school, 

 and it became necessary to establish similar nur- 

 sery-grounds, or forcing-houses, as they were 

 called, elsewhere. 



Liebig from the first acted on the principle 

 of making his pupils chemists in a general sense, 

 without regard to special application — of putting 

 them in possession of knowledge which they 

 could apply themselves. But neither was this in 

 accord with the ideas of the time. Just then 

 technical schools were being established for 

 teaching such departments of natural science as 

 were applicable to particular trades. In a school 

 of practical chemistry the future potter should 

 make clay his study ; the brewer, malt and hops ; 

 the tanner, skins and bark ; the dyer, dyes ; the 

 agriculturist, soils and manures, and so forth ; 

 but should not be troubled with things that he 

 did not expect to turn to any practical use. Lie- 

 big was strongly opposed to this thoughtless util- 

 itarianism. Only to learn just that of science 

 which you expect to turn to account is as absurd 

 as if you should learn just those words of a lan- 

 guage which you expect to use. 



People engaged in technical undertakings on 

 a large scale soon found out that Liebig was 

 right. Many applications were made to him not 

 only for teachers of chemistry, but for technical 

 chemists — not merely for chemical works, alkali- 

 works, etc., but for paper-mills, dyeing-works, 

 breweries, etc. One of the largest firms of Eng- 

 lish brewers wished to engage a chemist for spe- 

 cial researches into the process of brewing and 

 fermentation. Liebig thought it right to state 

 that he had not just then any pupil who had paid 



the least special attention to those subjects. The 

 house wrote back that that was of no moment ; 

 if the young man was acquainted with chemistry 

 in general, he could learn about brewing and fer- 

 mentation best with them ; and the young man, 

 who had gone through a course of chemical study, 

 but whose knowledge of brewing was probably 

 confined to drinking beer at the cellar near the 

 Giessen laboratory, became an eminent brewer. 



Liebig always regarded his career as an in- 

 structor with great satisfaction, and could truly 

 say, a few years before the close of his life : 



" I entered the realm of Science at the time 

 when organic chemistry was being developed, and 

 had for thirty years the rare good fortune to see 

 around me a large number of clever and aspiring 

 young chemists, many of whom are the ornaments 

 of the chairs of chemistry in nearly every country 

 of Europe. With their help, and, I must add, to- 

 gether with my friend Wohler, we succeeded in 

 carrying on numerous researches, and in ascertain- 

 ing a multitude of facts which must be considered 

 the groundwork of the organic chemistry of the 

 present." 



Liebig's literary labors do not come directly 

 within my province, any more than his career as 

 a teacher; yet my sketch would be incomplete 

 without mention of the Annals of Chemistry and 

 Pharmacy, and his " Letters on Chemistry." 



When Liebig appeared there was no paper in 

 Germany specially devoted to chemistry. It was 

 then for the most part an adjunct of pharmacy, 

 in which the results of chemical science were of 

 immediate use. The apothecary used often to 

 play an important part, not only in little bour- 

 geois epics, like " Hermann and Dorothea," but 

 in chemistry and natural science in general ; and 

 Liebig's first writings appeared mostly in the 

 Magazine for Pharmacy. In 1832 Liebig and 

 Geiger established the Annals of Pharmacy, which 

 became Liebig's organ. In 1840 it took the title 

 of Annals of Chemistry and Pharmacy, in order, 

 as Liebig said, to make it more in accord with the 

 contents, and Wohler became one of the editors. 

 For forty-one years Liebig was the main support 

 of these Annals, which were mostly called, and 

 are still, "Liebig's Annals," and they form an 

 inexhaustible and indispensable repertory of 

 information for any one who wishes to make 

 researches in any department of chemistry. 



The " Letters on Chemistry " originated in a 

 series of articles in the Augsburger Allgemeine 

 Zeitung. They need but to be mentioned to 

 recall to the mind of every educated man a 

 matchless example of the art of popularizing 



