392 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



professorial appointment, affording abundant opportunities for original 

 work, in favor of a more lucrative and exacting appointment involving 

 duties which, if rightly fuliillcd, must seriously curtail these same op- 

 portunities. It is praiseworthy of him to add to his means by com- 

 piling manuals of elementary science, and by writing attractive works 

 on science for the delectation of general readers ; but it is forsooth 

 derogatory to him, if not indeed a downright prostitution of his sci- 

 ence, that he should contribute to his means of livelihood by making 

 his knowledge subservient to the wants of departments, corporations, 

 and individuals, alike of great and small distinction, standing seriously 

 in need of the special scientific services that he is able to render 

 them. 



A glance back suffices to show how foreign to the ideas of the 

 great men who preceded us is this modern notion of any reprehensi- 

 bility attaching to applied or professional science. In his earlier days, 

 Professor Faraday wasi largely employed in connection with all sorts 

 of practical questions, and until almost the close of his life continued to 

 act as scientific adviser to the Trinity House. No man was more con- 

 stantly occupied in advising with regard to manufacturing and metal- 

 lurgic and fiscal questions than Professor Graham, who ended his days 

 holding the official position of Master of the Mint ; a position in which 

 he succeeded another eminent man of science, less known, however, as 

 a chemist than as an astronomer, Sir John Herschel. As in these 

 typical instances, so also in very many others ; and, if I may be allowed 

 to draw at all on my own personal experiences, I would say that some 

 of the most pleasant remembrances of my past life relate to the occa- 

 sions on which I had the good fortune, early in my careei', to be 

 brought into association, as a junior professional colleague, with some 

 among the then most eminent of scientific men. It did not indeed 

 happen to me to be associated in this particular manner with Faraday, 

 or Graham, or Daniel, or yet with their frequent colleague, Richard 

 Phillips, one of the early Presidents of the Chemical Society, for many 

 years the able and omniscient editor of the "Philosophical Magazine," 

 and the leading professional chemist of his day. But among those 

 who have passed away from us altogether, or have for some cause or 

 another quitted our ranks, my recollection goes back to professional 

 association with a host of distinguished men of science, whose mem- 

 bership would, of itself, suffice to insure an honorable estimation for 

 any profession to which they belonged. On different occasions it has 

 been my lot to be engaged in advising on various questions in con- 

 junction with Arthur Aikin, a personal friend of Priestley, writer of a 

 still valuable dictionary of chemistry, the first Treasurer of the Chemi- 

 cal Society, and for many years the leading authority in regard to 

 chemical metallurgy ; with Dr. Thomas Anderson, of Glasgow, an 

 assiduous and successful worker in the then unfamiliar field of organic 

 chemistry, and for many years consulting chemist to the Highland 



