246 LIFE AND EXPERIENCES CHAP. 



and his father before him had made a great many com- 

 mercial successes with no scientific knowledge, and 

 where he saw no reason to doubt that his son would 

 do the same. 



The change that has come over our manufacturers 

 during the last five-and-twenty years has been re- 

 markable, and now all are, I believe, fully awake 

 to the necessities of their position, and are most 

 desirous of improving the scientific knowledge, not 

 only of themselves and of their sons, but of their 

 managers, foremen, and workpeople. That this is so 

 may be proved by the fact that whereas formerly 

 it was difficult to keep our students for more than 

 one session, our senior laboratories are now well 

 stocked with men in their third, fourth, and even fifth 

 years, graduates of the University, who are working 

 at advanced subjects and at original research, and 

 becoming " Chemists " in the highest and best sense 

 of the word. In order to bring about this state of 

 things it was necessary to establish a thorough course 

 of theoretical and practical instruction, for both these 

 must go together to make the teaching a reality. The 

 gradual increase in the number of men studying chem- 

 istry from the year 1857 onwards shows how far my 

 efforts have succeeded, seconded as they have always 

 been by my colleagues, and by the able demonstrators 

 and assistant-lecturers 1 with whom it was my great 

 good fortune to work. 



This result, like everything that is worth doing, 

 was not accomplished without years of labour. 

 The personal and individual attention of the pro- 

 fessor is the true secret of success ; it is absolutely 



1 Among these are found the following names of well-known chemists : 

 Guthrie, Dittmar, Schorlemmer, Thorpe, Smithells, Bedson, Cohen, 

 Carnelley, Sydney Young, Williams, Baker, Watson Smith, and Bailey. 



