UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON 109 



Hence if a student is engaged too soon in attempts to 

 find out some new thing, he is perpetually finding obstacles 

 in the way of progress owing to want of knowledge or 

 of skill. As to the degree of preparation necessary for 

 success in research, there will always be some difference 

 of opinion. 



Ramsay was face to face with the necessity for deter- 

 mining on the method he would use in the teaching of 

 chemistry so soon as he obtained his first independent 

 appointment and that was at Bristol in 1880. The 

 method he contrived was set forth in a little book, 

 published in 1884, under the title Experimental Proofs 

 of Chemical Theory for Beginners. The following ex- 

 tracts from the Preface sufficiently describe its scope 

 and object: 



" The experiments described in this little book have formed 

 the preliminary work of all students beginning chemistry in my 

 laboratory for the last two years. I am convinced that such a 

 course has the advantage of familiarising the student with the 

 subjects treated in the first term of an ordinary course of lectures ; 

 of giving him practice in the construction of apparatus ; and of 

 making him perform calculations with a definite object, instead 

 of as merely theoretical problems. 



I have not found any difficulty in getting students to construct 

 their own apparatus ; after a few preliminary lessons in cork- 

 boring, bending glass tubes, etc., the demonstrator is put to 

 little trouble. . . . The accuracy of the results obtained by 

 these comparatively rough methods is surprising ; the density 

 of gases is found usually within three of four per cent, of the 

 truth ; and results of analysis seldom show an error of one per 

 cent. Of course good results are obtained only by careful workers, 



