GENERAL PAPERS 51 



interest lagged there was always an explosion to make every- 

 one start to his feet. 



These and multitudes of other ''experiments" came as the 

 natural result of the discovery of the new applications of elec- 

 tricity and chemistry. The lectures were spectacular, often 

 inaccurate, but nevertheless of absorbing interest and stimu- 

 lation. They stirred up the imagination of a non-scientific, 

 but inventive people ; who can tell how many of the later, per- 

 fected pieces of electrical and chemical apparatus came solely, 

 or came sooner, through their influence ! 



The seventies and eighties were also the age of the Chau- 

 tauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. Old as well as young 

 people, denied the advantages of college education, read the 

 classics in English translation and studied science in the form 

 of Professor Steele's "Fourteen Weeks" courses. The more 

 sober went on to Popular Science Monthly and the Scientific 

 American. As we think of that age we must conclude that 

 relatively, if not absolutely, its interest for knowledge, such 

 as it was, was very high ; the mind, as well as the mouth, was 

 open to receive the wonderful new ideas that were "put across" 

 the lecture table. 



3. Results of This Interest. — The thesis I wish to present, 

 and can hardly more than state, is this, that in my belief this 

 interest largely created by popular lectures, text books, maga- 

 zines, and science study circles, is responsible for the rapid 

 development of laboratories in our high schools and many 

 colleges and for their present magnificent buildings and equip- 

 ment. We school men are often likely to find fault with the 

 niggardliness and shortsightedness of the public in certain 

 special cases in which we are interested, but we need to remind 

 ourselves again and again that there has been a tremendous 

 loosening up of purse strings in the last twenty or twenty-five 

 years, especially with regard to school outfitting. Here, in 

 the presence of this new chemical laboratory (that of the Uni- 

 versity of Illinois), is it necessary to suggest that the same is 

 true of the university ? We need not be old to remember the 

 days when such things would have been utterly impossible, 

 even if we had had our present great national wealth. 



I remember well the case of a new high school building in 

 Chicago, first occupied in 1887, and situated in the center of 



