TBANSACTIOXS OF SECTIOX B. 687 



the beginning of tlie eighteenth century, that lectures began to be illustrated 

 by experiments. Rouelle, who was very active as a teacher, numbered among bis 

 pLipils many men of eminence, such as Lavoisier and Proust, and it was largely 

 owing to his influence that France took such a lead in practical teaching. In 

 Germany progress was much slower, and in our country the introduction of lectures 

 illustrated by experiments seems to have been mainly due to Davy. 



When it is considered how slowly experimental work came to be recognised 

 as a means of illustration and education, even in connection with lectures, it is not 

 surprising that in early times practical teaching in laboratories should have been 

 thought quite unnecessary. 



The few laboratories which existed in the sixteenth century were built mainly 

 for the practice of alchemy by the reigning princes of the time, and, indeed, up to 

 the beginning of the nineteenth century, the private laboratories of the great 

 masters were the only schools in which a favoured few might study, but which 

 were not open to the public. Thus we tind that Berzelius received in his laboratory 

 a limited number of students who worked mostly at research: these were not 

 usually young men, and his school cannot thus be considered as a teaching institu- 

 tion in the ordinary sense of the word. 



The first really great advance in laboratory teaching is due to Liebig, who, after 

 working for some years in Paris rmder Gay-Lussac, was appointed in 1824 to be 

 Professor of Chemistry in Giessen. Liebig was strongly impressed with the neces- 

 sity for public institutions where any student could study chemistry, and to him 

 fell the honour of founding the world-famed Giessen Laboratory, the first public 

 institution in Germany which brought practical chemistry within the reach of all 

 students. 



Giessen rapidly became the centre of chemical interest in Germany, and students 

 flocked to the laboratory in such numbers as to necessitate the development of a 

 systematic course of practical chemistry, and in this way a scheme of teaching was 

 devised which, as we shall see later, has served as the foundation for the system of 

 practical chemistry in use at the present day. 



When the success of this laboratory had been clearly established many other 

 towns discovered the necessity for similar institutions, and in a comparatively short 

 time every university in Germany possessed a chemical laboratory. The teaching 

 (if practical chemistry in other countries was, however, of very slow growth ; in 

 France, for example, AVurtz in 1869 drew attention to the fact that there was at 

 that time only one laboratory which could compare with the German laboratories, 

 namely, that of the Ecole Normale Superieure. 



Tlie earliest laboratory for teaching purposes in Grent Britain was that of 

 Thomas Thomson, wlio, after graduating in Edinburgh in 1799, began lecturing in 

 that city in 1800, and opened a laboratory for the practical instruction of his pupils. 

 Thomson was appointed lecturer in Chemistry in Glasgow TJniversity in 1807, 

 and Regius Professor in 1818, and in Glasgow he also opened a general laboratory. 

 Actual progress in the general establishment of laboratories for the study ol 

 chemistry seems to date from the time of Thomas Graham, who in 18^0 was. ap- 

 pointed Professor of Chemistry at Anderson's College in Glasgow, and in 1837 at 

 University College, London. Whether practical chemistry was taught in Anderson's 

 College at that time I have not been able to ascertain, but there is no doubt that 

 regular courses in testing and systematic analysis were given by Graham from 1837 

 to the date of his resignation in 1855. 



In 1845 the College of Chemistry was founded in London, an institution which 

 under A. W. Hofmann's guidance rapidly rose to such a prominent position, and 

 in 1851 Frankland was appointed to the chair of chemistry in the new college 

 founded in Manchester by tlie trustees of John Owens, and here he equipped a 

 laboratory for the teaching r^practical chemistry. Under Sir Henry Roscoe this 

 laboratory soon became too small for the growing number of chemical students, 

 a defect which was removed when the new buildings of the college were opened 

 in 1873. In 1849 Alexander Williamson was appointed Professor of Practical 

 Chemistry at University College, London, where he introduced the practical 

 methods of Liebig". 



