692 EEPORT— 1900. 



Bult original papers and to avoid as far as possible any tendency to mere mechanical 

 work. 



The exact nature of such a course must, however, necessarily he left very much 

 in the hands of the teacher, and the details will no doubt require much considera- 

 tion ; but I feel sure that a course of practical inorganic chemistry could be con- 

 structed which, while teaching all the important facts which it is necessary for 

 the student to know, will, at the same time, constantly tend to develop his faculty of 

 orio:inal thought. 



Supposing such a course were adopted (and the experiment is well worth trying), 

 there still remains the problem of how the student who has had this kind of 

 training is to be examined. 



With regard to his theoretical work there would be no difficulty, as the 

 examination could be conducted on much the same liues as at the present time. 

 In the case of the practical examination I have long felt that the only satisfactory 

 method of arriving at the value of a student's practical knowledge is by the in- 

 spection of the work which he has done during the whole of his course of studv. 

 and not by depending on the results of one or two days' set examination. I think 

 that most examiners will agree with me that the present system of examination in 

 practical chemistry is highly unsatisfactory. This is perhaps not so apparent in 

 the case of the qualitative analysis of the usual simple salt or mixture ; but when 

 the student has to do a quantitative exercise, or when a problem is set, the results 

 sent in are frequently no indication of the value of the student's practical work. 

 Leaving out of the question the possibility of the student being in indifferent 

 health during the short period of the practical examination, it not infrequently 

 happens that he, in his excitement, has the misfortune to upset a beaker when his 

 quantitative determination is nearly finished, and as a result he loses far more marks 

 than he should do for so simple an accident. 



Again, in attacking a problem he has usually only time to try one method of 

 solution, and if this does not yield satisfactory results he again loses marks; whereas 

 in the ordinary course of his practical M'ork, if he were to find that the first 

 method was faulty he would try other methods until he ultimately arrived at the 

 desired result. 



It is difficult to see why such an unsatisfactory system as this might not be 

 replaced by one of inspection, which I think could easily be so arranged as to 

 work well. 



A student taking, say, a three years' course for the degree of Bachelor of 

 Science might be required to keep very careful notes of all the practical work 

 which he does during this course, and in order to avoid fraud his notebook could 

 from time to time be initialled by the professor or demonstrator in charge of the 

 laboratory. An inspection of these notebooks could then be made at suitable 

 times by the examiners for the degree, by which means a very good idea would be 

 obtained of the scope of the work which the student had been engaged in, and if 

 thought necessary a few questions could easily be asked in regard to the work so 

 presented. Should the examiners wish to further test the candidate by giving him 

 an examination, I submit that it would be much better to set him some exercise 

 of the nature of a simple original investigation, and to allow him two or three 

 weeks to carry this out, than to depend on the hurried work of two or three 

 days. 



The object which I had in view in writing this Address was to caU attention 

 to the fact that our present system of training in chemistry does not appear. > 

 develop in the student the power of conducting original research, and at the same 

 time to endeavour to suggest some means by which a more satisfactory state of 

 things might be brought about. I have not been able, within the limits of this 

 Address, to consider the conditions of study during the third year of the student's 

 career at college, or to discuss the increasing necessity for extending that course 

 and insisting on the student carrying out an adequate original investigation before 

 granting him a degree, but I hope on some future occasion to have the oppor- 

 tunity of rfetaming to this very important part of the subject. If any of the 



