THE SCIENCE vs. THE ART OF CHEMISTRY. 695 



to those so long employed in studying the problems of astronomy. 

 Although we are far from the perfect state of the science, still every 

 advance made in it is a step toward the end. From time to time ma- 

 terial enough is collected to enable some one to make a comprehensive 

 generalization. These generalizations we admire, but we sometimes 

 forget that they never could have been made had not a myriad of 

 workers from day to day furnished the material ; themselves often 

 unconscious of the importance of the real work they were doing, but 

 believing that every fact established, however insignificant in itself, 

 every error of previous observers, however slight, corrected, would at 

 some time serve a purpose in the growth of the science. Dalton's law 

 of multiple proportions ; the law of Dulong and Petit connecting the 

 specific heat and the atomic weight of the elements ; Avogadro's hy- 

 pothesis relating to the connection between molecular weights and the 

 volumes of gaseous compounds, would still have been of the future, 

 had it not been for the efforts of a great many scientific workers, con- 

 tributing their mites day by day. 



Though we thus recognize a growth of the science of chemistry, 

 entirely independent of any practical applications of its facts, it is of 

 course true that the latter follow closely in the footsteps of the former. 

 When, then, we rejoice in any useful application, let us remember that 

 it could never have been made had the science itself, as a science, not 

 advanced. 



It happens in this country particularly that a man may both prac- 

 tise the art of chemistry and at the same time be a worker in the field 

 of scientific chemistry. This is due to the fact that it is necessary for 

 the men to live, and there are very few positions in the country which 

 enable their incumbents to devote themselves to the pure science of 

 chemistry without obliging them at the same time to look for addi- 

 tional means of support to that furnished by the positions themselves. 

 This additional means of support can usually be found most readily 

 in the practice of the art of chemistry. Too often, time that could 

 and would be devoted to grappling with the problems of the science 

 is given up to the art in order to keep the purse supplied. Every 

 properly-constituted scientific man, however, who is obliged to so 

 apply his powers as to bring himself immediate and material rewards, 

 feels that he is doing something which he would rather not do, and 

 that, by applying himself to his science proper, he could in the end 

 be of much more service to the world. It is apt to be the case, too, 

 that he who begins to slight the science and to favor the art will at 

 last entirely sacrifice the former for the latter, and we see too many 

 teachers of chemistry in this country at the present day who are de- 

 voting their time to the art rather than to the science of chemistry ; 

 a circumstance which has the most pernicious effect upon the growth 

 of the science among us, for the students who ai-e placed under the 

 influences mentioned are not stimulated, as they should be, to con- 



