4io 



NA TURE 



{March 5, 1885 



of laboratories for students, laboratories in which the 

 students work with their own hands. There have been 

 laboratories of investigation from the earliest times. No 

 doubt Aristotle had his ; and Archimedes had a labora- 

 tory wherever he went — in his bath, even, he observed, 

 and studied, and thought out the laws of hydrostatics. 

 But those were not students' laboratories, and our special 

 subject to-day is a students' laboratory, where they can 

 meet together for the practical study of the various depart- 

 ments of science, where they will be brought together;to 

 use their eyes and hands — their eyes otherwise than in 

 merely reading books and looking at pictures or drawings ; 

 their eyes to observe accurately, and their hands to ex- 

 periment, in order to learn more than can be learned by 

 mere observation. To teach students to so work and so 

 learn is the object of a scientific students' laboratory. 



The first scientific laboratory that ever existed was 

 that of Frederick II., King of Sicily, and was estab- 

 lished between 1200 and 1250. Acting under the 

 advice of his chief physician, Martianus, he made a 

 law that nobody should practise physic or surgery 

 without having studied anatomy practically. He estab- 

 lished a school of practical anatomy, to which stu- 

 dents flocked from all parts of Europe for many years. 

 Subsequently there was an anatomical school instituted 

 at Bologna ; and in those two schools we hear the first of 

 students working in laboratories. The anatomical stu- 

 dents' working-room has for several hundred years been 

 generally recognised as an absolute necessity of medical 

 education. But I believe there was no other branch of 

 physical science where students worked in the laboratory 

 until probably twenty years of the present century had 

 passed away. The University of Glasgow is, I think, 

 justly entitled to take some pride in the great modern 

 expansion and extension of the system of giving students 

 practical work in laboratories, as an addition to the 

 education which previously had been confined almost 

 entirely to book-work, or, at best, to attending lectures 

 illustrated by experiments and diagrams. The first 

 chemical laboratory for students, so far as I know, was that 

 founded by a colleague of my own name, though no relation 

 — Thomas Thomson, 1 the great chemist and mineralogist. 

 Prior to 1S31 a students' chemical laboratory, under 

 Thomas Thomson, at Glasgow University, flourished and 

 was attended by a large number of students. These were 

 chiefly medical students, but a considerable number also 

 were students who wished to learn chemistry to practise 

 it in the various chemical manufactories in Glasgow and 

 the North of England, while some went to learn chemistry 

 solely for the sake of science. A chemical laboratory has 

 now become indispensable in all universities. A notable 

 development of chemical laboratories with reference to 

 practical education in chemistry, was made by Liebig not 

 many years after 1831. 1 fix that date from personal recol- 

 lection. In 1 83 1 I first came to Glasgow, and I well re- 

 member that the building containing the chemical lecture 



1 [Note added February 12, 1S85 :— First Professor of Chemistry in Glasgow 

 University ; appointed 1818 ; held the chair till his death, 1852. 



The minutes of the Faculty of Gla-gow College show that as early as the 

 first month of tSz8, Prof Thomas Thomson began applying for more com- 

 modious premises in which to carry on his work in the department of 

 chemistry. For two years he kept his wants persistently before the Faculty 

 (of which he, being only a "Regius Professor," was not a member) until 

 January 1830. when his efforts were crowned with success. A plot of ground 

 wa„ then purchased at the corner of College Street and Shuttle Street, outside 

 the College precincts, and operations were at once begun, and pushed on 

 with such vigour that the buildings seem to have been finished towards the 

 end of the same year. The bidding thus erected contained ample and well- 

 designed accommodation for teaching and experimental work. There was a 

 large class-room and a large and conveniently-arranged public laboratory for 

 students, with private rooms for the professor and for the prosecution of 

 experimental research by the professor and his assistants, or by students and 

 others. 



Part of the ground-floor of the premises was let to a tenant (the " Falstaff 

 Tavern " for many years !). To-day I found the building still in existence, 

 and occupied by " George Younger and Co.'s Yarn Stores." Nearly all the 

 rest of the University Huildings within the College precincts have been 

 pulled down within the last twelve years for the "College Railway Station," 

 which now occupies the site of the old Glasgow College and University.— 

 \V. T.l 



room and laboratory existed then. How long before 1831 

 it was built I do not at this moment recollect. The world- 

 renowned laboratory of Liebig brought together all the 

 young chemists of the day. If 1 were to name the great 

 men who studied at Giessen I should have to name 

 almost every one of the great chemists of the present day 

 who were young forty years ago. His laboratory was in 

 full and flourishing activity between 1841 and 1845, an d 

 continued so for several years more until he migrated to 

 Munich. It is still, I believe, a prosperous institution, 

 carrying out the aims of its founder with undiminished 

 zeal and energy. One of those chemists now living, who 

 was young forty years ago, told me a few days since that 

 Liebig's laboratory looked like an old stable. I believe 

 the building in which we are now assembled was 

 an old stable, but I fail to discover that it looks 

 like an old stable now. If Liebig's laboratory, looking 

 like an old stable, brought out such results to astonish 

 and benefit the world, what must we expect of the beauti- 

 ful laboratory in which we are now met ? What would 

 Liebig not have given for the appliances and advantages 

 afforded by the well-equipped buildings of the North 

 Wales College at Bangor ? What would Liebig not have 

 given for the facilities which now exist in these admirably- 

 appointed lecture-rooms in which we are now met, and 

 for the carefully-equipped laboratories and working-rooms, 

 and places for special experimental work covering the area 

 of the old stables and coach-houses of the " Penrhyn Arms 

 Hotel"! If the professors and the students in this Col- 

 lege — I think I may already say this thriving College — 

 will be inspired by the zeal of those who have worked 

 before them, a great reward will result even in the first 

 year of the existence of the institution. 



With respect to physical laboratories I may be allowed, 

 without being thought egotistical, to say something in 

 which I must speak of my own action. The physical 

 laboratory in the University of Glasgow is, I believe, the 

 first of the physical laboratories of which we have now so 

 many. When I entered upon the professorship of natural 

 philosophy at Glasgow I found apparatus of a very old- 

 fashioned kind. Much of it was more than a hundred 

 years old, little of it less than fifty years old, and most of 

 it was of worm-eaten mahogany. Still with such appli- 

 ances year after year students of natural philosophy had 

 been brought together and taught. The principles of 

 dynamics and electricity had been well illustrated and 

 well taught : as well taught as lectures and so imperfect 

 apparatus — but apparatus merely of the lecture-illustra- 

 tion kind — could teach. But there was absolutely no 

 provision of any kind for experimental investigation, 

 still less idea, even, for anything like students' practical 

 work. Students' laboratories in physical science were 

 nut then thought of. I remember one of the chemists of 

 the Liebig school asking me what was the object of a 

 physical laboratory. I replied that it was to investigate 

 the properties of matter. I could give no better answer 

 now. I may remind you that there is no philosophical 

 division whatever between chemistry and physics. The 

 distinction is that different properties are investigated by 

 different sets of apparatus. The distinction between 

 chemistry and physics must be merely a distinction of 

 detail and of division of labour. 



Soon after I entered my present chair in the University 

 of Glasgow in 1 845 I had occasion to undertake s5me inves- 

 tigations of certain electrodynamic qualities of matter, to 

 answer questions which had been suggested by the results 

 of mathematical theory, questions which could only be an- 

 swered by direct experiment. The labour of observing proved 

 too heavy, much of it could scarcely be carried on without 

 two or more persons working together. I therefore in- 

 vited students to aid in the work. They willingly 

 accepted the invitation, and lent me most cheerful and 

 able help. Soon after, other students, hearing that some 

 of their class-fellows had got experimental work to do, 



