x ON THE TEACHING OF CHEMISTRY 245 



work this was, to some extent at least, realised, for 

 there were few engaged in the district in any large 

 way of business in which chemistry plays a part who 

 had not shown their appreciation of the value of 

 scientific education by sending their sons or their 

 managers to learn chemistry at Owens College. It is 

 a pleasure to me to add that since my time the success 

 of the Owens School of Chemistry has not merely 

 been maintained, but has been greatly developed, both 

 as regards numbers and amount of original work, 

 under the able superintendence ot Professors Dixon 

 and Perkin. 



The public recognition of the value and meaning of 

 a scientific education is shown by the fact of the grow- 

 ing willingness of parents to permit, and of young men 

 themselves to wish to devote a sufficient amount of 

 time to their studies to enable them to derive real 

 benefit therefrom. In the earlier years the prevailing 

 notion of the majority of the manufacturers (though 

 amongst them there were notable exceptions) was that 

 if his son stayed at college for six months he could be 

 " put up " to all the necessary information to enable 

 him to apply chemistry to his business. The fathers 

 frequently used to come with a story of this kind: "I 

 am a calico printer (or a dyer, or a brewer), and I want 

 you to teach my son chemistry so far, and only so far, 

 as it is at once applicable to my trade," and when 

 informed that chemistry as a science must be taught 

 before its applications could be understood, and that his 

 son could not for two or three years at least begin to 

 work upon the subjects directly bearing on his trade, 

 he too often replied that if that were the system he could 

 not afford time for his son to learn on this plan, and 

 that if he could not be taught at once to test his drugs, 

 he should prefer to leave him in the works, where he 



