518 PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



activity. His first large book, the " Elements of Chemical Physics," 

 was published in 1860, an excellent account of this branch of the 

 science as it existed at that day, which ran through three editions, 

 and was still used at Oxford within a very few years. At the very 

 end of this period his second important text-book appeared, the 

 " Chemical Philosophy," published in 1868 (four editions), a won- 

 derfully clear and complete exposition of the modern theories of 

 chemistry. Neither of these books was popular with the students. 

 They could not be, as they obliged their readers to think, and there is 

 no occupation more distasteful to the undergraduate. I can well 

 remember the utter despair which settled upon me when I attacked 

 my first problem in the Chemical Physics. I had never been called 

 upon to think unassisted before, and at first I doubted the possibility 

 of the process. But in this very demand on the thinking powers of 

 the student lay the chief usefulness of these books, and their educa- 

 tional value on this account can hardly be overestimated. Nor would 

 the fact that this work was distasteful have troubled him much, as he 

 often expressed his disapprobation of the sugar-coating now so gener- 

 ally considered essential on educational pills. 



A book of au entirely different sort came out between the two 

 which I have just mentioned. This was " Religion and Chemistry, or 

 Proofs of God's Plan in the Atmosphere and its Elements" (1864, 

 and a new edition in 1880). It consisted of a course of lectures 

 delivered before the Brooklyn Institute, the Lowell Institute of 

 Boston, and the Mechanics' Association of Lowell, in 1861. In it 

 the argument of natural theology is worked out in great detail from 

 chemical data, and his stores of scientific knowledge are brouEcht to 

 the service of his sincere and earnest piety. 



In 1860, he married Mary Hinckley Huntington, of Lowell, who 

 survives him. Some years later Oliver W. Huntington and his sister 

 (now Mrs. W. A. Pew, Jr.), a nephew and niece of Mrs. Cooke, 

 became members of his family ; and their presence did much to 

 brighten his life, and gave additional objects for his warm affection. 



For many years before 1868, the Catalogue had contained the fol- 

 lowing announcement : " Mineralogy is taught to those who desire 

 to learn it by Professor Cooke." This was associated with a similar 

 announcement about Hebrew, and the number who desired either of 

 these incongruous companions was small. Enough however studied 

 mineralogy to prove to Cooke, " somewhat to his own surprise, that, 

 when made solely a subject for object lessons, the study of deter- 

 minative mineralogy was an admirable training of the powers of 



