Industrial Chemistry 



For all its attractions, however, chemistry 

 did not make me forget a long-cherished plan 

 well-suited to my tastes, that of teaching nat- 

 ural history at a university. Now, one day, at 

 the grammar-school, I had a visit from a chief- 

 inspector which was not of an encouraging na- 

 ture. My colleagues used to call him the 

 Crocodile. Perhaps he had given them a 

 rough time in the course of his inspections. 

 For all his boorish ways, he was an excellent 

 man at heart. I owe him a piece of advice 

 which greatly influenced my future studies. 



That day, he suddenly appeared, alone, in 

 the schoolroom, where I was taking a class in 

 geometrical drawing. I must explain that, at 

 this time, to eke out my ridiculous salary and, 

 at all costs, to provide a living for myself and 

 my large family, I was a mighty pluralist, both 

 inside the college and out. At the college in 

 particular, after two hours of physics, chem- 

 istry or natural history, came, without respite, 

 another two hours' lesson, in which I taught 

 the boys how to make a projection in descript- 

 ive geometry, how to draw a geodetic plane, a 

 curve of any kind whose law of generation is 

 known to us. This was called graphics. 



The sudden irruption of the dread person- 

 age causes me no great flurry. Twelve 

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