The Class-Book of Chemistry. 65 



With a vivid recollection of his Milton school, he de- 

 sired to make a book acceptable to just such boys and 

 girls as had in years gone by sat on benches at his 

 side. They and thousands like them farmers' sons 

 and daughters were surrounded every day of their 

 lives by chemical phenomena which would interest 

 them deeply if understood. Current text-books were, 

 he knew, unfit for their purpose ; they were dry, tech- 

 nical, destitute of sympathy with young minds, and 

 oblivious of their ways of looking at things. As a 

 rule their authors made a perfunctory circuit of all 

 the sciences, and turned out a series of class books in 

 the true style of a mechanic of the pen work little 

 better than cataloguing or almanac-making. You- 

 mans felt that chemistry ought to be made as popu- 

 lar as physics, or natural philosophy, as it was then 

 called ; for this he found his chart prepared the way 

 by its easily understood pictures. His plan of work 

 was, first of all to make himself familiar with what 

 each authority had written upon the topic in hand. 

 He would then slowly elaborate such a statement as 

 he thought best suited to his purpose. The chemical 

 elements were described briefly and plainly, omitting 

 the tedious accounts of apparatus and complex reac- 

 tions which filled the current books. Instead of these 

 bare details, every fact was presented in its relation 

 to law, every step in the progress of his chapters was 

 systematically linked to the next. Chemistry had not 

 then acquired its present wealth and diversity of spe- 

 cialization. In a volume of three hundred and forty 

 pages he was able not only to give the substance of 

 the current inorganic chemistry, but to include chap- 

 ters w T hich summarized the chemistry of plant and 

 animal life. In carrying out his method of approach- 



