452 
NATURE 
[ Sept. 10, 1885 
majority will not be required to perform ordzmarvy analyses, either 
qualitative or quantitative ; it will be sufficient for them to have 
gained such. an amount of practical experience that they 
thoroughly understand the principles of analysis ; that they shall 
have learnt to appreciate the sacredness of accuracy ; and that 
they shall have acquired sufficient manipulative skill to be 
able when occasion requires to carry into execution the 
analytical process which their text-books tell them is applic- 
able, and even, if necessary, to modify the process to suit 
circumstances. 
Chemistry is no longer a purely descriptive science. The 
study of carbon compounds and Mendeljeff’s generalisation have 
produced a complete revolution! The faults in our present 
system are precisely those which have characterised the teaching 
of geography and history, and which are now becoming so 
generally recognised and condemned ; in fact, no better state- 
ment of the manner in which I conceive chemistry should be 
taught could be given them by broadly applying to the teaching 
of chemistry what was said by Professor Seeley at the Inter- 
national Conference on education last year, in an important paper 
on the teaching of history. 
The necessity for some change must, I venture to think, be 
patent to all thoughtful teachers, and especially to those who | 
are called upon to fulfil the painful duties of an examiner. The 
railway book-stalls have made us acquainted with ‘Confessions ” 
of all sorts, but if the ‘‘ Confessions of an Examiner ” were to 
be written they would be far more heartrending than any. 
The examiner in chemistry, let him go where he will, scarcely 
dare to ask a question to which the answer cannot be directly 
read out from a text-book. He will be told ‘‘ that such and 
such a compound is formed by the action of so and so upon so 
and so,” but he will usually find blank ignorance of the phrase 
“by the action of,” and as to the mode of performing the 
operation. The examiner would, however, be bound to agree 
with the teacher that it is almost impossible to induce students 
to seek information outside the lecture-room, and except in the 
ordinary cram text-books, and that it is hopeless to expect them 
to devote attention to anything unless it will pay in a subsequent 
examination—in fact that the old university spirit of acquiring 
knowledge for its own sake is almost unknown among our 
science students. Herein lies one of the teacher’s most 
serious difficulties, as he is more often than not bound to teach 
in a particular way, or to teach certain subjects, in entire oppo- 
sition to his own views, in order to qualify his students to pass 
a particular examination ; for example, many of our colleges 
now distinctly state that their courses are intended to qualify 
students to pass the examinations of the London University, and 
hence they are governed by the requirements of that university, 
which vary more or less as the examiners are periodically 
changed. The examiner, on the other hand, is often placed in 
a difficult position : it is clear to him that the system under which 
the students he is called upon to examine have been taught is a bad 
one ; yet he feels that he has no right to set questions such as 
he honestly believes should direct the teaching into proper chan- 
nels, because he knows that the teacher is immovable, and it is 
not fair to make the examinees the victims of a system for which 
they are not responsible. Hence, perforce, the teacher goes on 
teaching badly and the examiner examining badly. Difficulties 
of this kind are bound to make themselves felt at a transition 
period like the present, and will only disappear if we recognise 
the grave responsibility which rests upon ourselves and improve 
our methods of teaching and our text-books : these, in too many 
instances, are unsuited to modern requirements, and are being 
made worse by stereotyping, and the practice which is gradually 
creeping in of merely changing the date on the title page and the 
numeral before the word ‘‘ edition,” thus engendering the belief 
that the information is given up to date. 
Both in teaching and examining two important changes ought 
forthwith to be made: our students ought at the very beginning 
of their career to become familiar with the use of the balance ; 
and the imaginary distinction between so-called inorganic and 
organic compounds should be altogether abandoned. I do not 
mean that students should be taught quantitative analysis as 
ordinarily understood, but that instead of endeavouring to make 
clear to them by explanation only the meaning of terms such as 
equivalent, for example, we should set them to perform a few 
simple quantitative exercises in determining equivalents, &c. It 
can easily be done, and terms which otherwise long remain 
mythica. acquire a real meaning in the student’s mind. That 
the elements of the chemistry of carbon compounds do not find 
a place at a very early period in the course of instruction is one 
of those riddles connected with our system which it is impossible 
to answer. Attention was once pithily directed to the fact in 
my hearing by a scientific friend—not a chemist—who said he 
had often felt astonished that, although he had learnt a good 
deal of chemistry, the chemistry of the breakfast-table was prac- 
tically a sealed book to him, common salt being the one object 
of which he felt he knew something. 
I may here urge that there is one great error which we mst 
avoid in the future, that of overworking our students, in the 
sense of obliging them to pay attention to too many subjects at 
atime. This is done more or less, I believe, in all our science 
schools, and medical students are peculiarly unfortunate in this 
respect. It is to some extent necessitated by the deficient pre- 
liminary education of our students ; but I believe that I am 
justified in stating that it is also partly, perhaps mainly, due to 
the fact that the curriculum is too often imposed by lecturers 
who are directly interested in the attendance of students at their 
lectures. This is one of the great difficulties in the way of higher 
education, and the continuance of the evil is probably in a mea- 
sure due to inappreciation of what constitutes higher education 
and culture: neither consist in a smattering of knowledge of 
a variety of subjects such as is too often required at present. 
The more general appreciation of the value of science undoubt- 
edly depends to a considerable extent on improvements such as I 
have indicated being introduced. When such is the case,»we may 
hope that a large number of students will enter out chemical 
schools, not with the intention of becoming chemists, but be- 
cause it will be recognised that the training there given is of a 
high educational value, and that a knowledge of chemistry is of 
distinct service in very many avocations. 
We may also hope that it will be possible ere long to teach 
chemistry properly to medical students. Seeing that the practice 
of medical men largely consists in pouring chemicals into that 
delicately organised vessel, the human body, and that the 
chemical changes which thereupon take place, or which nor- 
mally and abnormally occur in it, are certainly not more simple 
than those which take place in ordinary inert vessels in our 
laboratories, the necessity for the medical man to have a know- 
ledge of chemistry—and that no slight one—would appear to 
ordinary minds to stand to reason; that such is not generally 
acknowledged to be the case can only be accounted for by the 
fact that they never yet have been taught chemistry, and that the 
apology for chemistry which has been forced upon them has been 
found to be of next to no value. No proof is required that the 
student has ever performed a single quantitative exercise ; and I 
have no hesitation in saying that the examinations in so-called 
practical chemistry, even at the London University, are beneath 
contempt: after more than a dozen years’ experience as a teacher 
under the system, I can affirm that the knowledge gained is of 
no permanent value, and the educational discipline #z/. Here the 
reform must be effected by the examining boards : it is for them 
to insist upon a satisfactory preliminary training, and they must 
so order their demands as to enforce a proper system of practical 
teaching ; and if chemistry is to be of real service to medical 
men, more time must be devoted to its study. Physiological 
chemistry is taught nowhere in our country, either at the uni- 
versities or at any of our great medical schools ; let us hope that 
the publication of works like those of Gamgee and Lauder 
Brunton may have some effect in calling attention to this grievous 
neglect of so important a subject. 
Having dealt with the educational aspect of the question, let 
me now briefly refer to some other difficulties which seriously 
hinder research. It has been more or less openly stated that the 
teachers in our chemical schools might themselves do far more. 
Is this the case? I do not think so; I believe it is not the staff, 
in most cases, who are primarily in fault. Under our peculiar 
system of placing the government of science schools in the hands 
of those who have little, if any, experience as educationalists, and 
little knowledge of or sympathy with science, the appointments 
are sometimes made without the slightest reference to capability 
of inciting and conducting original investigation, and without 
any proof having been given either of a desire to promote higher 
education in the only possible way—by research ; nevertheless 
experience shows that, as a rule, fair use is made by teachers of 
their opportunities. The opportunities afforded us are indeed 
few. In the first place, the amount of actual routine teaching we 
are called upon to perform is very considerable, many of us having 
to conduct evening as well as day classes ; and the work is often 
of the most harassing description, owing to the want of interest 
