THE ALUMNI JOURNAL 19 



SCHEELE, THE CHEMIST. 



By Victor Robinson. 

 It is not merely as an investigator and discoverer, but as a high- 

 principled and unassuming man, that Scheele merits our warmest 

 admiration. His aim and object was the discovery of the truth. 

 The letters of the man reveal to us in the most pleasant way his 

 high scientific ideal, his genuinely philosophic temper, and his sim- 

 ple mode of thought. "It is the truth alone that we desire to know, 

 and what joy there is in discovering it !" With these words he him- 

 self characterizes his own efforts. 



Ernst von Meyer, Ph.D. 



We may regard Scheele not only as having given the first indica- 

 tion of the rich harvest to be reaped by the investigation of the 

 compounds of organic chemistry, but as having been the first to 

 discover and make use of characteristic reactions by which closely 

 allied substances can be detected and separated, so that he must be 

 considered one of the chief founders of analytical chemistry. 



Sir H. E. Roscoe, F. R. S. 



What a strange creature Poetry chose for her prophet — a blinrj 

 man who begged his bread through seven towns- 



But was not Philosophy's founder similarly bad — a bow-legged, 

 bald-headed fellow, with goggle eyes and a sunken nose, who dis- 

 pleased the authorities and drained a cup of hemlock? 



And I fear me that Science has been equally amiss, for the father 

 of Pharmaceutics was a poor invalid, who passed his days in debt, 

 and died young — dreaming of test-tubes. 



Yet jibe not at these men. The centuries uncover to them. Ride on 

 your mightiest locomotive, sail away on your speediest air-ship, 

 thou proud mortal of modern davs ; visit the wealthiest nations, 

 look upon the most majestic of empires, and remember that when 

 their boasting is done and their glory fades, many a precious shelf 

 will still be the pedestal of volumes relating the "Life and Work" 

 of the undying masters. 



Where are the towns that refused food and welcome to the in- 

 spired singer? They are blotted from the map, and if they still 

 linger in the memory, it is only because their unworthy streets were 

 once trod by the feet of the poet. 



Does the court-house in which it was decided that the philosopher 

 must quench his immortal thirst with hemlock, still dare to stand? 



