1866. ] ‘Hofmann and Modern Chemistry. 65 
opposed this course, as being unlikely to lead to any definite object, 
or to be attended with any profitable result. After a short contest, 
the law was selected as the profession to which the young Hofmann 
was to devote his attention, and for a few years, with considerable 
interruptions and, according to his own confession, without any 
sreat result, the study of the law claimed the future chemist. By 
a combination of circumstances, such as we not unfrequently find 
determining a man’s course in life, this career was soon aban- 
doned. 
The chemical school of Liebig had attained its highest degree 
of development, and from all parts of the world, ardent pupils 
visited the University of Giessen, anxious to study under the 
auspices of the great master. Young chemists, many of them 
having been educated elsewhere, even Professors of Universities and 
schools, many of whom had been teaching for years, assembled in 
this little German town, which for a time became the chemical 
centre of the world. That which must be, par ewcellence, distin- 
guished as Modern Chemistry had its birth here, and every student 
who left the laboratory in which Liebig taught, took “colour like 
the dyer’s hand from that it works in,’ and spread the chemical 
philosophy of this school over Europe and America. 
Liebig’s laboratory was originally the kitchen of a barracks. It 
was now too small for the chemical class, and it became necessary 
to increase the working room. At first an additional wing was 
added to the old building, but ultimately it was determined that the 
whole should be reconstructed. The construction of the Giessen 
University laboratory was committed to the father of the young 
man, who was still wavering between law, philology, and architec- 
ture. The friendly relations which ensued between the architect of 
the new institution and Professor Liebig soon produced its effect 
upon the younger Hofmann. Once drawn within the influence of 
an attraction, which all who have been brought within its sphere 
declare to be irresistible, he felt impelled with extraordinary force 
towards the study of nature. From this period a new life com- 
menced ; the law studies rapidly fell into oblivion, the once favourite 
subject of languages claimed but an occasional hour of leisure, the 
whole time being devoted to the study of chemistry, physics, and 
mathematics. 
_Liebig’s laboratory was the first independent institution of the 
kind in Europe, and it has served as the model for all subsequent 
structures devoted to the same end. In if we see young Hofmann 
in rapid succession working as a zealous student and participating 
in his revered master’s researches as an expert assistant. It is not 
a little remarkable that even from his début attention was fixed 
upon the young chemist, and that his first imvestigation should 
prove to be the development of a fact, which has in his latest 
VoL. III. F 
