vi WORK AT MANCHESTER 153 



desired results, and afterwards go on to the laws of reflection 

 and refraction, the composition of light, its velocity, its 

 alternations. 



Then comes a statement about wave propagation and wave 

 surfaces (not including double refraction as yet) and the 

 explanation of reflection, refraction, interference, &c. 



Then if it can be done in the space the simpler parts of 

 polarisation, which are by no means as simply done in books 

 as they ought to be. I see I have an optical disciple, Sig. 

 Casorati, who has adopted my plan of doing optical instru- 

 ments, but has restored all the things which I purposely cut 

 out of the theory in order not to confuse the student. 



Yours very truly, 



J. CLERK MAXWELL. 



N.B. I can do nothing till June, and am not sure of my 

 time even then. 



On visiting one of our large public schools I was 

 informed by one of the masters that my book was 

 used in the school. I said, " I suppose you use my 

 Lessons in Elementary Chemistry ? " " No," said he ; 

 " we use your shilling primer." I added, " Of course 

 for the small boys. What book do you use for the 

 higher classes?" He replied, "We only teach 

 chemistry to the elder boys and we use your primer." 

 I hope this cannot be taken as a type of the science- 

 teaching in our secondary schools. Here were boys 

 from sixteen to eighteen years of age, the sons of well- 

 to-do persons, who were being taught chemistry out 

 of a book which I wrote, so to speak, for little boys 

 out of the street. 



A much more serious business than the writing of 

 these small books was the preparation and publication 

 of the Treatise on Chemistry. In the writing of 



tl had the advantage of the co-operation of my 

 nd and colleague Schorlemmer, to whose power of 

 worlcxand knowledge of the science, especially the 

 historical portion of it, I have already alluded. 



