30 



REPORT 1866. 



This is seen in tlie following two columns of substances, and to each column 

 must now be added Protagon. 



Formed 

 synthetically, 



Oxalic acid. 



Formic acid. 



Lactic acid. 



Acetic acid. 



Valerianic acid 



Glycerine. 



Sugar. 



Starch. 



Cellulose. 



Cholesterin. 



Butyrin. 



Palmitin. 



Stearin. 



and 



Formed 

 analytically. 



Albumen. 



Casein. 



Animal quinoidiue. 



Indican. 



Glycocol. 



Taurin. 



Leucin. 



Urea. 



Caprylic acid. 



Caproic acid. 



Capric acid. 



Olein. 



Stearin. 



Let me for an instant point out to you what a vast field for analytical discovery 

 lies open here to the chemistry of the future. 



Various processes of oxidation, hydration, dis-hydration, and splitting, taking 

 place at a temperature below 100° F., produce in animals a multitude of com- 

 pounds which lie between albumen and carbonate of ammonia. The analytical 

 chemistiy of the future will some daj' be able to form from albumen all these 

 descending compoimds, as surely as we ai-e now progressing by synthetical disco- 

 very to the formation of all the compounds that are put together by the synthetical 

 chemistry of vegetables; and as the S}Tithetical chemist is already surpassing 

 natm-e by forming combinations which vegetable life has never yet (produced, so 

 the analytical chemist of the futm-e will probably from albumen educe innume- 

 rable compoimds, which in the tissues and secretions of animals have never been 

 known to occm*. 



It is the special function of the British Association to popularize science and to 

 interest the public generally in the discovery of scientific truth. This Association 

 is in fact a means of education. It was intended to promote the difi"usion of natm-al 

 knowledge among the people, because it was considered that that knowledge sui'- 

 passed all other knowledge in its usefulness and benefit to mankind. 



From its relationship to the public, the British Association is more interested 

 than any other Society that exists in hastening the time when education in natural 

 knowledge will be at least as general as the education in classical knowledge 

 now is. 



My predecessor, Professor Miller, last year told you that " some years will no 

 doubt elapse ere science is admitted to take equal rank as a means of education with 

 the study of classical literature. Still it is but a question of time." " The practical 

 instinct of the nation is becoming alive to the necessity of making certain portions 

 of the training of our youth consist in the systematic study of the elementary parts 

 of properly selected branches of science." 



Although we may say with Mr. Gladstone that time is on our side, and although 

 we are beginning to ask how our present formula for education has arisen, and 

 why it remains almost imchanged whilst all natural Imowledge is advancing, and 

 although an entire change in everything except the highest education has taken 

 place, yet public opinion is affected so slowly, and the prejudices of our earliest 

 vears fix themselves so fii-mly in om- minds, and the belief we inherit is so strong, 

 that an education far inferior to that which a Greelc or a Roman youth, say twenty 

 centuries ago, would have received, is the only education fit to make an English 

 gentleman, that I consider it is of no use, notwithstanding the power which this 

 Association can bring to bear on the public, to occupy yom- time with the whole 

 of this vast question. 



But there is an outlying portion of this subject which personally touches each 

 one of us here present, and this with much diffidence I venture to bring before this 

 Section of the British Association. 



