416 FRANCIS HUMPHKEYS STORER. 



ports. At Commencement, 1855, he received on examination the 

 Har\ard degree of ^Bachelor of Science, and immediately went to 

 Europe to pursue the study of chemistry in German laboratories. 



On his return from Europe, in 1857, he forthwith opened a laboratory 

 in Boston as an analytical and consulting chemist for all manufactur- 

 ing, pharmaceutical and commercial purposes; and this laboratory 

 he maintained with great industry and success for eight years. 



When Professor William B. Rogers, the founder of the oNIassachu- 

 setts Institute of Technology, was organizing the first Faculty of that 

 School in the spring of 1865, just at the end of the Civil War, his 

 choice for Professor of General and Industrial Chemistry fell upon 

 Francis Humphreys Storer, then thirty-three years of age. Presi- 

 dent Rogers's plans for creating a strong School of Technology in 

 Boston commended themselves very much to Storer's judgment; and 

 he was also eager to attempt to teach chemistry by the laljoratory 

 method, a method strongly favored by Professor Rogers in all the 

 sciences. At the same time his friend and fellow-student under 

 Professor Cooke, Charles W^ Eliot, was appointed Professor of Analyti- 

 cal Chemistry in the Institute. In the fall of 1865 these two young 

 professors began work on the Institute's first classes in some hired 

 rooms on Summer Street, but were soon called on to plan and equip 

 the chemical laboratories in the Institute's new building on Boylston 

 Street. These laboratories were planned for teaching chemistry to all 

 students, young or old, beginners or adepts, by the laboratory method. 

 In these convenient and spacious laboratories Professors Storer and 

 Eliot were soon experimenting not only on the students of the Insti- 

 tute but also on classes of teachers, both men and women, employed 

 in schools in and about Boston. They soon found that a laboratory 

 manual was needed for the use of their inexperienced students; and 

 they accordingly wrote together a "Manual of Inorganic Chemistry" 

 which was the first of its kind to be published in the English language, 

 or indeed in any language. In order to make this book as good as 

 possible for its novel uses, the authors used it in proof sheets for a 

 year in their own teaching, with both their \-ounger and their older 

 students, and by this method effected A\'ithin the year many slight and 

 some substantial improvements in the text. This book attained a 

 large circulation, and was kept alive for nearly fifty years b\' rather 

 freciuent revisions, at first by its authors, and later by younger men 

 acting in association ^-ith Professor Storer. The two comrades also 

 i.ssucd a "Manual of Qualitative Analysis" intended to jiromote the 

 same method of laboratorv teachinsj. 



