33 REPORT — 1875. 



CHEMISTEY. 



Address by A. G. Veenon Haecouet, M.A., F.H.S., F.C.S., President of the 



Section, 



To the privilege of presiding over this Section custom has added the duty of 

 offering some preliminary remarks upon the branch of science for whose advance- 

 ment we are met. 



In discharge of this duty some of my predecessors have reviewed the progress of 

 Chemistry during the previous year ; and until a few years ago there was no more 

 needful service that your President could render, though the task of selection and 

 abstraction was one of ever-increasing difficulty. But a few years ago the wisdom 

 and energy of Dr. Williamson transformed the Journal of the Chemical Society 

 into a complete record of cliemical research, and this Association materially pro- 

 moted the advancement of science when it helped the Chemical Society in an 

 undertaking which seemed at one time hopelessly beyond its means. The excellen 

 abstracts contributed to the Journal err, if at all, on the side of brevity ; and yet 

 the yearly volume seems to defy the bookbinder's press. I shall not venture to 

 attempt fiu-ther abstraction, nor to put before you in any way so vast and miscel- 

 laneous an aggregate of facts as the yearly increment of chemistry has become. 

 The advancement of our science (to borrow again the well-chosen language of the 

 founders of this Association) is of two kinds. The first consists in the discovery 

 and co-ordination of new facts ; the second in the diffusion of existing knowledge 

 and the creation of an interest in the objects and methods and residts of scientific 

 research. For the advance of science is not to be measiu-ed only by the annual 

 growth of a scientific library, but by the living interest it excites and the number 

 and ardour of its votaiies. The remarks I have to offer you relate to the advance- 

 ment of Chemistry in both aspects. 



One fact has been brought into unpleasant prominence by the Journal of the 

 Chemical Society in its present form — namely, the small proportion of original work 

 in Chemistry which is done in Great Britain. All who are ambitious that our 

 country should bear a prominent part in contributing to the common stock of 

 knowledge, and all who know the effect upon individual character and happiness 

 of the habit and occupation of scientific inquiry, must regret our backwardness in 

 this respect. The immediate cause is easily found. It is not that English workers 

 are less inventive or industrious than their fellows across the Channel, but that 

 their number is exceedingly small. How comes it that, in a country which abounds 

 in rich and leisurely men and women (for neither the reason of the case, nor the 

 jealousy of the dominant sex, nor partial legislation excludes women from sharing 

 this pursuit with men), there are so few who seek the excitement and delights of 

 chemical inquiry ? Moralists tell us that the reason why some men are content 

 with the pleasures of eating and drinking and the like is, that they have never 

 had experience of the greater pleasure which the exercise of the intelligence affords. 

 I am not about to represent it as the moral duty of those who have means and 

 leisure to cultivate Chemistry or any branch of science ; but no taste for a pursuit 

 can be developed in the absence of any knowledge of its nature. A taste for 

 Chemistry is often spoken of as a peculiar bias with which certain men are born. 

 No doubt there are differences in natural aptitudes and tastes ; but the chief reason 

 why it is so rare for men of leisure to addict themselves to scientific pursuits is, 

 that so few boys and young men have had experience of the pleasure which they 

 bring. Much has been done during the last twenty years, both at the Universities 

 and at the Public Schools, to provide for the teaching of science. To speak of what 

 I know best, the University of Oxford has made liberal provision for the teaching 

 of science, and for its recognition amoQg the studies requisite for a degi-ee ; nor 

 have the several Colleges been backward' in allotting Scholarships and Fellowships 

 as soon as and whenever they had reason to believe that those elected for profi- 

 cienc;y in science would be men equal in intellectual calibre to those elected for 

 proficiency in classics or mathematics. But the result is somewhat disappointing ; 

 and under a free-trade system science has failed to attract more than a small per- 



