WHY STUDY CHEMISTRY? 



CHEMISTRY began as a secret science. The early chemists con- 

 cealed their knowledge and more often their ignorance under 

 a cloak of symbols and ciphers of the most mysterious and awe- 

 inspiring sort. But now the Black Art has been opened to day- 

 light. The modern chemist is more anxious to tell people what 

 he knows than people are to listen to him. He still uses symbols 

 and has a fondness for long words, but these are designed to reveal, 

 not to conceal. 



Still there lingers about chemistry something of the witchery 

 of its antiquity. It has the air of being much harder to under- 

 stand than it really is. The curious structural formulae of organic 

 compounds are no more difficult to work out than a Chinese puzzle 

 and quite as much fun. 



Chemistry is especially fitted to give training in the scientific 

 method, for it is experimental from the start. Properly taught 

 or rather properly learned it inculcates self-reliance and 

 independence of thought. If the pupil will take the teacher's 

 word for the names of things and follow the advice of the book 

 as to what experiments to try, he can find out and think out the 

 most important part of the science for himself. He can work 

 out a system of analysis by testing known x substances in a sys- 

 tematic way and then when he enters upon unknown mixtures 

 he can attack them with the courage of self-confidence. The 

 student of astronomy never gets a chance to handle a star, or 

 even an asteroid. But the substances that the young chemist 

 studies are always weighable, usually tangible, generally visible 

 and frequently smellable. The student of geology never has the 

 opportunity to make a mastodon and all he knows of a volcano or 

 a geyser is the picture of it. But the Freshman chemist makes 



in 



