TRANSACTIOXS OF SECTION B. 589 



nitrogen, can certainly be produced, not only by asymmetric pentad nitrogen, but 

 also by tetravalent tin and sulphur ? Dr. Hewitt, again, wbom I am proud to 

 number among my former students, has shown that the laboratory of the People's 

 Palace, Whitechapel, may be made a centre in which abstruse investigations on 

 the aromatic compounds can be carried on. 



There is, however, perhaps nothing which testi6es more strongly to the zeal 

 for original investigation amongst British chemists than the manner in which 

 some of the science masters at oar schools have participated in the advancement of 

 chemical knowledge. Some of these schools have, indeed, from time to time secured 

 the services of men whose names are indelibly engraved on the records of scientitie 

 chemistry, and it is from the laboratories of these schools that in some cases 

 perhaps their best work has emanated. Of the chemical investigator.s who have 

 laboured in school laboratories there occur to me, aiutnigst the living, Debus and 

 Clowes at Queenwood, Tilden and Shenstone at Clifton, Pnrdie at Newcastle- 

 under-Lyme, Brereton Baker at Dulwich, Charles Baker at Shrewsbury. To these 

 names might be added many more ; indeed an examination of the list of Fellows 

 of the Chemical Society shows at what a number of schools throughout the 

 country the chemical teaching is now imparted by men who have themselves 

 advanced the science which they profess. 



From the conspicuous instances which I have brought before you — and they 

 might, did time allow, be greatly multiplied — it must be obvious that if a chemist 

 only possesses the necessary enthusiasm and qualifications he will, no matter how 

 inauspicious his surroundings, succeed in doing something to extend the 

 boundaries of his science, and I think I may go further and say without fear of 

 contradiction that in this devotion to research the chemist in this country usually 

 throws into the shade the representatives of other branches of science. How is 

 this pre-eminent zeal of the British chemist to be explained ? I believe that 

 there are two principal causes in operation which have brought about this result. 

 Firstly, the great majority of the higher chemical teachers in this country have 

 been trained in Germany, or have been trained by men who were themselves 

 trained there ; and secondly, they have only in exceptional cases been educated at 

 the ancient seats of learning. Their inspiration and enthusiasm are almost in- 

 variably directly or indirectly traceable to a German origin, and this fire is kept 

 alive by their remaining in constant touch with German chemical literature. 



It is being continually impressed upon us in the newspapers and dinned into 

 our ears from every platform that it is imperative for this coimtry to approximate 

 more to German ideas and methods, and in general to cast away our insular pre- 

 judices, obstinacy, and self-satisfaction. We chemists have already done these 

 things; we have emancipated ourselves from the mischievous illusions which have 

 a tendency to thrive in a country enjoying an isolated geographical position. For, 

 during the last half century the academic simngs of Germany have been visited 

 by a stream of young English chemists, a stream which, for the perennial regidarity 

 of its flow, reminds one indeed of the pilgrimage made by our fashionable invalids 

 to the same country in the hope of correcting the effects of high living by the 

 waters of Homburg, Kissingeu, and Wiesbaden. There must indeed be few 

 chemists who return from the German temples of science without bringing back 

 at least a spark of the sacred fire to be kindled on an altar at home ; and although 

 at times it may be stifled by the island fog, or burn low through the scarcity of 

 fuel, it generally smoulders long before going out altogether. 



The chemist, again, is generally, as I have said, unfettered by an English uni- 

 versity record : he stands or falls by the work of his life, and not, as so many others 

 do, by the reputation which they have made in three short years of adolescence at 

 one of the ancient seats of learning. 



The spirit of research, which was formerly but a sporadic manifestation within 

 the walls of these venerable institutions, has, however, now become endemic there 

 also, and for a number of years past chemical literature has received a continuous 

 stream of original communications from Oxford and Cambridge, as well as from 

 the Universities of Scotland and Ireland. Instead of those occasional contribu- 

 tions which were customary in the past, we have now evidence that these centres 



