632 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



illative skill. By introducing this branch of study at too eavly a 

 period we force our students to act as machines, inasmuch as they 

 do not, and can not, know enough to work intelligently ; we are 

 but trying to make them run before they have learned to walk. 

 Even when the interactions on which qualitative analysis is based 

 are fully studied, and the equations relating thereto are conscien- 

 tiously written out, the result is not much better, owing to the 

 slight importance of so many of the interactions apart from their 

 technical application in analysis, and especially on account of our 

 ignorance of the precise nature of many of the interchanges of 

 which we avail ourselves: the persistent misrepresentation of 

 facts which such a course encourages is, in my opinion, one of its 

 worst features. 



I believe that in the near future our students will first be set 

 to solve problems, each in its way a little research, and involving 

 much simple quantitative work ; they will thus be taught chem- 

 ical method, or, in other words, the art of discovery. They will 

 then be taken through a course of quantitative exercises with the 

 object of making them acquainted, by direct contact with the 

 facts, with the fundamental principles of our science, which are 

 but too rarely appreciated at the present day. After this, they 

 will seek to acquire proficiency in quantitative analysis and in the 

 art of making preparations ; and subsequently they will give 

 sufficient attention to the study of physical properties to enable 

 them to appreciate the physico-chemical methods of inquiry 

 which are now of such importance. The study of qualitative 

 analysis in detail will be left to the last, as being an eminently 

 technical subject. Meanwhile, by attendance at lectures, by read- 

 ing carefully chosen works of a kind altogether different from 

 the soul-destroying text-books we now possess, and especially by 

 the study of classical models in chemical literature, they will 

 have acquired what is commonly spoken of as theoretical knowl- 

 edge, but too often regarded by us as of secondary importance, 

 and which it is so difficult to make Englishmen realize means a 

 proper understanding of the subject. Students so trained im- 

 bued from the outset, even from early school days, with the 

 research spirit will at all times be observant and critical, nay, 

 even logical ; dogmatic teaching will cease to have any charm for 

 them : they will actually take deep interest in their studies a 

 result devoutly to be hoped for, as nothing is more galling to 

 the teacher at the present day than the crass indifference of the 

 average student and his refusal to give attention to anything un- 

 less it will pay in an examination. At the close of such a course 

 the student will be thoroughly prepared to undertake original 

 investigation, distinctly with the object of exhibiting his individ- 

 uality and originality, and not, as at present, with the object of 



