Sepe. 18, 187 3] 
~ good system. Difficult of realisation it certainly must be, for it 
will need the devoted and indefatigable exertions of many an 
able and high-minded man for many a long year. Orily show 
how such exertions can be made to produce great and abiding 
~ results, and they will not be wanting. And as for expense, you 
_ will surely agree with me that the more money is distributed in 
such frugal and effective manner, the better for the real greatness 
of our country. 
What nobler privilege is attached to the possession of money 
_ than that of doing good to our fellow men ? and who would 
grudge giving freely from his surplus, or even depriving himself 
of some comforts, for the sake of preparing the rising generation 
for a life of the utmost usefulness and consequent happiness ? 
I confidently trust that the time will come when the chief item 
in the annual budget of the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be 
the vete for National Education ; and when in some later age 
our nation shall have passcd away, when a more true civilisation 
has grown up and has formed new centres for its throbbing life, 
when there are but broken arches to tell of our bridges and 
crumbling ruins to mark the sites of our great cathecrals— then 
will the greatest and noblest of England’s works stand more 
perfect and more beavtiful than ever ; then will some man sur- 
vey the results of Old England’s labours in the discovery of 
_ imperishable truths and laws of nature, and see that her energy 
and wealth were accompanied by some nobler attributes—that 
_ while Englishmen were strong and ambitious enough to grasp 
_ power, they were true enough to use it for its only worthy pur- 
pose—that of doing good to others. 
I must not, however, trespass longer upon your time and your 
kind attention. My subject would carry me on, yet I must stop 
without having done half justice to it. 
If I have succeeded in convincing you that a National system 
of Education is now necessary and possible, and in persuading 
you to do what you respectively can to prepare the way for it, I 
Shall feel that the first step is made towards that great result. 
SECTIONAL PROCEEDINGS 
SECTION B.—CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 
ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT, W. J. Russet, F.R.S. 
OF late years it has been the custom of my predeces- 
sors in this chair to open the business of the section with 
an address, and the subject of this address has almost inyari- 
ably been a review of the progress of chemistry during the 
past year. JI purpose, with your leave, to-day to deviate 
somewhat from this precedent, and to limit my remarks, as 
far as the progress of chemistry is concerned, to the history of 
one chemical substance. The interest and the use of an annual 
survey, at these meetings, of the progress of chemistry, has to 
a certain extent passed away, for the admirable extracts of all 
important chemical papers, now published by the Chemical 
Society, has in a great measure taken its place, and offers to the 
chemical student a much more thorough means of learning what 
progress his science is making than could possibly be done by 
the study of a presidential address. Doubtless these abstracts 
of chemical papers are known to others than professional 
chemists, but I cannot pass them over without recording the 
great use they have proved to be, how much they have done 
already in extending in this country an exact knowledge of the 
progress of science on the continent, and in helping and in 
stimulating those who are engaged in scientific pursuits in this 
country. I believe few grants made by this Association have 
done more real good than those which have enabled the Chemical 
Society to publish these abstracts. 
I dwell for a moment on the doings of the Chemical Society, 
for I believe in the progress of this Society we have a most im- 
portant indication of the progress of chemical science in this 
country. The number of original papers communicated to the 
Society during the past year has far exceeded that of previous 
years: during last year fifty-eight papers were read to the 
Society, whereas the average number for the last three years 
is only twenty-nine. Further, I may say, there is every appear- 
ance of this increased activity not only continuing, but even 
increasing. Another matter connected with the Society deserves 
a passing word, I mean its removal from its old rooms at Bur- 
lington House, which afforded it very insufficient accommoda- 
tion, to its new ones in the same building. 
which is now taking place, will give to the Society a great 
NATURE 
as 
! 
This transference | 
415 
increase of accommodation, and thus admit of larger audiences 
attending the lecture-, of the proper development of the library, 
and of the full illustration by experiment of the communications 
made to it. These improvements must act most beneficially on 
the Society, and stimulate its future development ; even now it 
numbers some 700 members, and certainly is not one of the least 
active or least useful of the many scientific societies in London. 
Since our last meeting, at Brighton, we have lost the most re- 
nowned of modern chemists—Liebig. His influence on chemistry 
through a long and most active life has yet to be written. Pub- 
lishing his first paper fifty years ago, it is difficult for chemists of 
the present day to realise the changes in chemical thought, in 
chemical knowledge, and in chemical experiments which he 
lived through, and was more than any other chemist active in 
promoting. His activity was unwearied : he comm: nicated no 
less than 317 papers to different scientific journals, an! almost 
every branch of chemistry received some impetus from his hand. 
Liebig took an active interest in this Associat‘on, and I believe 
the last paper he wrote was one in answer to a communication 
made at the last meeting of this Association. On two occasions 
he attended the meetings of the British Association, and has 
communicated many papers to this section. The meeting at 
Liverpool in 1837 was the first at which he was present ; he there 
communicated to this section a paper on the products of the de- 
composition of uric acid, and further gave an account of his 
most important discovery, made in conjunction with Wohler, of 
the artificial formation of urea. At this meeting Liebig was 
requested to prepare a report on the siate of our knowledge 
of isomeric bodies: This request, although often repeated, was 
never complied with. He was also requested to report on the 
state of organic chemistry and organic analysis—thus our section 
was evidently desirous of giving him full occupation. At the 
meeting in 1840 at Glasgow, a paper on ‘‘ Poisons, Contagions, 
and Miasms,” by Liebig was read; it was in fact an abstract 
of the last chapter in his book on ‘‘ Chemistry in its applications 
to Agriculture and Physiology,” and the work itself appeared 
about the same time, dedicated to this Association. Liebig 
says :—‘‘ At one of the meetings of the Chemical Section 
of the British Association for the advancement of Science, 
the honourable task of preparing a report upon the state of 
Organic Chemistry was impcsed upon me. In this present 
work I present the Association with a part of this report.” At 
the next meeting, which was held at Plymouth, in 1841, there 
was an interesting letter from Liebig to Dr. Playfair read to our 
section ; in it, among other matieis, Liebig describes an “ ex- 
cellent method” devised by Drs. Will and Varrentrapp for 
determining the amount of nitrogen in organic bodies ; he also 
says we have repeated all the expressions of Dr. Brown on the 
production of silicon from paracyanogen, but we have not been 
able to confirm one of his results ; what our experiences prove is 
that paracyanogen is decomposed by a strong heat into nitrogen 
gas, and a residue of carbon which is exceedingly difficult of 
combustion. 
To the next meeting—it was at Manchester, and Dalton was 
the president of this section—Dr. Playfair communicated an 
abstract of Professor Liebig’s report ‘‘On Organic Chemistry 
applied to Physiology and Pathology.” This abstract is printed 
in our proceedings, and the complete work is looked uponas the 
second part of the report on Organic Chemistry. This Association 
may therefore fairly consider that it exercised some influence on 
Liebig in the production of the most important works that he 
wiote. Playfair’s abstract must have been listened to with the 
greatest interest, and I doubt not the statements made sharply 
criticised, specially by the physiologists then at Manchester. 
Playfair concludes his abstract with these words, thus summing 
up the special objects of these reports :—‘‘ In the opinion of all, 
Liebig may be considered a benefactor to his species, for the 
interesting discoveries in agriculture, published by him in the 
first part of his report. And having in that pointed out means 
by which the food of the human race may be increased, in the 
work now before us he follows up the chain in its continuation, 
and shows how that food may be best adapted to the nutrition 
of man. Surely there are no two subjects more fitted than these 
for the contemplation of the philosopher ; and by the consummate 
sagacity with which Liebig has applied to their elucidation the 
powers of his mind, we are compelled to admit that there is no 
living philosopher to whom the Chemical Section could have 
more appropriately entrusted their investigation.” , 
At the meeting at Glasgow, in 1855, Liebig was also present, 
but then only communicated to this section a short paper on ful- 
