86 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[April 1, 1897. 



where he had as students the late James Young, whose 

 name is linked with the creation of the Scotch paraffin 

 oil industry, and the present Lord Playfair — had 

 followed Ure and Birkbeck to London, and had been 

 elected to the chair of chemistry at University College, 

 Gower Street, up to that time known as the University 

 of London. Here as successor to Edward Turner, a pains- 

 taking and even brilliant manipulator, whose atomic 

 weight work rivals that of Berzelius in point of con- 

 scientious accuracy, he created the School of Chemistry 

 which, aided by Fownes and Williamson, he made famous 

 throughout Europe. 



But it may be doubted whether in 1837 there were 

 more than a couple of dozen persons altogether in 

 the British Isles receiving systematic instruction in 

 practical chemistry, and even that supply was pro- 

 bably fully equal to the demand. There was, in fact, 

 little to tempt men to take up the study or practice of 

 chemistry as a means of livelihood. Professorships or 

 teacherships were few in number and poorly paid ; 

 analytical chemistry, as a profession, barely existed, 

 although the " expert," pacr Ure, was not altogether 

 unknown ; and chemical manufacturing was, for the most 

 part, in the hands of men to whom chemistry was an 

 empirical art. How things appeared to an intelligent and 

 keen observer is well illustrated by one of Liebig's letters 

 to Berzelius, in which he recoimts bis impressions of 

 England, which he had just visited. Under date Novem- 

 ber 2Gth, 1837, Liebig tells the Swedish chemist that he 

 had been some months in England, had seen a vast 

 amount, and learnt little. England, he says, is not the 

 land of science ; her chemists are ashamed to call them- 

 selves chemists because the apothecaries had appropriated 

 the name. He was extraordinarily pleased with us as a 

 people and delighted with our hospitality and welcome, 

 but as regards our chemists — well, Graham was the only 

 exception, and he was precious. Liebig evidently con- 

 sidered that Faraday could no longer be reckoned among 

 the chemists. 



But a little leaven was leavening the whole lump, and 

 that leaven was Liebig himself. Aided by the far- 

 sighted munificence of a German prince, he had suc- 

 ceeded in establishing the little Giessen laboratory, and 

 thither every seeker after chemical truth and every 

 aspirant for chemical fame bent his steps. Among these 

 early chemical pilgrims were Lord Playfair, Sir Henry 

 Gilbert, Prof. Williamson, Dr. Gladstone— all happily 

 stiU among us. Others might be named, but the greater 

 number have now passed away. All of them, whether 

 great or small, brought back from Giessen something 

 of the spirit and method which have made the little labo- 

 ratory on the tanks of the Lahn famous in the history 

 of chemistry. The influence of Giessen has been as a seed 

 which, falling on good ground, has sprung up and multiplied 

 an hundredfold. That influence has made Germany pre- 

 eminent in the world of scientific chemistry, and may make 

 her pre-eminent, if it has not already done so, in the 

 world of industrial chemistry. Luckily for this country, 

 Liebig's influence has reacted also upon us. It has had a 

 profound effect on chemical activity, and on tbe develop- 

 ment of chemical teaching in England. One of its first 

 results was seen in tbe founding, in 1841, of the Chemical 

 Society, whose duty and privilege it is to foster chemical 

 inquiry and promote the spread of chemical knowledge. 

 The Society now numbers upwards of two thousand 

 members. How it is achieving its ptu-pose may be seen 

 in the activity and interest of its meetings, in the extent 

 and value of its publications, and in the helpful hand it 

 extends to the investigator by the prudent administration 



of the funds which have been placed at its disposal by the 

 munificence of private benefactors and public bodies. 



Another notable result of Liebig's influence on chemistry 

 was seen in tbe foundation, in 1845, of the Royal College 

 of Chemistry, of which Hofmann, one of his most dis- 

 tinguished pupils, was invited to take charge — thanks 

 largely to the action of the late Prince Consort. What 

 Hofmann, fired by the example of Liebig and his own 

 innaie enthusiasm, did for chemistry in England may be 

 seen in the panegyric of Hofmann— the joint work of 

 Lord Playfair, Sir Frederick Abel, Dr. Perkin, and Prof. 

 Armstrong, which appeared some little time ago in the 

 Journal of the Chnnical Society. There is no more in- 

 spiriting or instructive chapter in the history of chemistry 

 in this country than that which records the work of the 

 Eoyal College of Chemistry, and traces its influence on 

 the development of pure and applied science. Although 

 Hofmann unfortunately left us, his spirit and example still 

 remain and actuate us. This spirit has been carried into 

 a hundred places of chemical instruction and research in 

 these islands. Let us pray that it may continue and 

 increase, for it is on its continuance and growth that the 

 development of chemical science and chemical industry 

 depends ; and in so far as our national prosperity is connected 

 with the chemical arts our national prosperity depends on 

 it also. 



It is hardly necessary nowadays to show how closely the 

 wellbeing of a community is connected with the chemical 

 arts. Chemistry and its applications concern us at every 

 turn, for there is scarcely a single industrial operation 

 which could be named with which this science has not 

 some relations, either proximately or remotely. There is 

 a noble passage in one of Sir Humphry Davy's earlier 

 lectures which well illustrates this point. The lesson has 

 been frequently urged upon us, but never more forcibly 

 than by Davy at the very beginning of this century. It is 

 not often that the theatre of the Royal Institution resounds 

 with more eloquent sentences than these : — 



" The progression of physical science is much more 

 connected with your prosperity than is usually imagined. 

 You owe to experimental philosophy some of the most 

 important and peculiar of your advantages. It is not by 

 foreign conquests chiefly that you arc become great, but 

 by a conquest of nature in your own country. It is not 

 so much by colonization that you have attained your pre- 

 eminence or wealth as by the cultivation of the riches of 

 your own soil. . . . 



"In every part of the world manufactures made from 

 the mere clay and pebbles of your soil may be found ; and 

 to what is this owing ? To chemical arts and experiments. 

 You have excelled all other people in the products of 

 industry. But why '? Because you have assisted industry 

 by science. Do not regard as indifferent what is your true 

 and greatest glory. Except in these respects, and in the 

 light of a pure system of faith, in what are you superior to 

 Athens or to Rome '? Do you carry away from them the 

 palm in literature and the fine arts :' Do you not rather 

 glory — and justly too — in being in these respects their 

 imitators ? Is it not demonstrated by the nature of your 

 system of public education and by your popular amuse- 

 ments ■? In what, then, are you their superiors '.' In 

 everything connected with physical science — with the 

 experimental arts. These are your characteristics. Do 

 not neglect them. You have a Newton, who is the glory, 

 not only of your own country, but of the human race. 

 You have a Bacon, whose precepts may still be attended 

 to with advantage. Shall IjUglishmen slumber in that 

 path which these great men have opened, and be overtaken 

 liy their neighbours ? Siy. rather, that all assistance shall 



