624 KEPOET— 1888. 



prizes given in connection with the evening classes in a town not far from Birming- 

 ham, and I took the opportunity of advisino- the teachers present on the occasion 

 to read. One of them said to me afterwards, ' Wlien do you suppose I can read ? 

 I am engatyed in going round to my schools from nine in the morning till ten at 

 night.' People of this kind do tbe greater part of the so-called science teaching 

 sustained by the Science and Art Department, and the worthy town councillors 

 and committees who employ them think that these are the people who are going to 

 help the British manufacturer in his struggle against foreign competition under the 

 guidance of the highly trained chemists from the German universities. This would 

 be ludicrous if it were not so very serious. 



There is an opportunity at the present time of correcting some of these mistakes, 

 but no advantage is being taken of it. I refer now to the ' technical schools ' which, 

 are springing up everywhere. There may be a few competent teachers of chemistry 

 employed in some of them, but I find it difficult to think of many examples. 

 The sort of person who is put in charge of these places is usually a schoolmaster, 

 who is allowed, sometimes even after his appointment, to get a short course of 

 qualitative analysis in order to enable him to obtain a certificate which will entitle 

 him to earn grants from the Science and Art Department. 



And manufacturers are much to blame. Instead of employing trained chemists 

 the greater number of those who want chemical assistance are satisfied to engage 

 the services of boys who have been to an evening class for a winter or two. 



The difficulty of finding a satisfactory career in connection with the subject also 

 accounts for the fact which I fear must be admitted, that chemistry does not attract 

 its due share of the intellect of the nation. Clever young men can usually do 

 better at the law, in medicine, or in commerce than in teaching chemistry or in 

 manufactures in which chemical skill is applicable. So badly educated are miny 

 of the young men who commence the study with professional objects in view that 

 it is quite impossible to teach them anything beyond routine analysis, if So much. 



I heard lately from a friend of mine a story of a young groom in his employ 

 who cannot read or write, and who declines to be taught to read on the ground 

 that, considering himself prett}^ smart, he is afraid that ' learning might dull him.' 

 This idea seems to be rather prevalent among certain classes of people, but I can 

 assure those who wish to be chemists that some familiarity with the rule of three, 

 and such a command of English as will enable them to understand words of more 

 than one syllable, will be no obstacle to the acquisition of chemical knowledge. 



Three years has hitherto been regarded as the normal period for study. The 

 question arises, Can a young man, previously well educated, expect to become an 

 accomplished chemist, competent to apply his knowledge usefully, by giving the 

 whole of his time to study during three years ? I believe not. 



By reason of the enormous development of the science the position of the 

 student of chemistry is nowadays very different from what it was thirty years ago. 

 Since that time we have not only got a few new elements, a matter of small im- 

 portance in itself, but new views of the nature of the elements and of their mutual 

 relations. This could hardly have come about but for the recognition of the law of 

 Avogadro as a fundamental principle, upon which we rely as the ultimate criterion 

 by which the true distinction between so-called equivalent weights and molecular 

 ratios has been established. By the gradual evolution of ideas having reference 

 successively to the electro-chemical relations of elements and compounds, the theory 

 of types, and atomicity or valency, we have arrived at notions of chemical constitu- 

 tion based upon the hypothesis of the orderly linking together of atoms. Thirty 

 years ago isomerism had scarcely attracted notice, and carbon compounds were only 

 just beginning to be arranged in homologous series. The general use at the present 

 day of the language of the molecular kinetic theory shows how deeply this theory 

 influences our ideas of the internal constitution of matter. Within the period 

 referred to dissociation has been studied and a vast body of thermo-cbemical data 

 have been accumulated. And although the larger portion of the results of this 

 work still await interpretation, dynamical ideas of chemical action are now gene- 

 rally accepted. We have also new methods of investigation, including spectroscopic 

 analysis with all its vast train of results. 



