JANUARY 19, 1912] 
Perhaps the science as developed twenty- 
five years ago is better adapted to teaching the 
beginner than is the chemistry of to-day. It 
is certainly simpler. Why not teach the first 
year student in chemistry, in addition to a 
judicious number of the empirical facts of the 
science, something about the atom and the 
molecule, and leave it for a later stage to pre- 
sent the more recent developments? What 
would be lost by so doing? We have now ar- 
rived at a fundamental question. 
The answer to this question is, in my opin- 
ion, that we must no longer teach the chem- 
istry of three or four decades ago, because we 
know that in many fundamental points zt is 
untrue. But it might be answered, we grant 
you this, but for the sake of simplicity we 
will teach the old chemistry, for, say a year, 
and then turn the student over to the new. 
It is right here that an insuperable diffi- 
culty is encountered. It is the persistence of 
first impressions. Any one who has observed 
this at all carefully knows how nearly impos- 
sible it is to correct erroneous first impres- 
sions. Whatever the physiological or psycho- 
logical explanation of the persistence of these 
impressions may be, the fact remains. 
I have had this brought home to me so 
often and in such a forcible manner that it 
has made a deep and lasting impression. It 
has been my lot to try to teach something of 
the newer developments in chemistry to some 
students who have been trained in the older 
school. The result has been that it has re- 
quired years of incessant drilling to ingraft 
the new generalizations into the mind of such 
astudent. At first, the newer conceptions were 
scarcely more than tongue deep. In answer to 
questions it would be stated at first that “it 
is said” that such and such is true, or “ the 
book says,” or “you said” that this or that is 
the explanation; all of which went to show 
that the new ideas had penetrated hardly more 
than skin deep, and this, notwithstanding a 
serious effort on the part of an honest student 
to make the real science of chemistry an inte- 
gral part of himself. 
What is the explanation of this rather dis- 
tressing condition of things? Hrroneous first 
SCIENCE 89 
impressions, from which it is almost impos- 
sible wholly to escape. 
There is one other matter to which I should 
like to refer before leaving this part of the 
discussion. This is the tendency which has 
existed in the past in this country to make 
chemistry easy. I do not believe there can be 
much difference of opinion as to this being a 
fact. How often and how justly have we 
heard the elementary course in chemistry 
branded by the student body as a “snap”; 
and for this very reason a preponderating 
number of students elect this course. 
This condition is nothing less than fatal, 
as far as the science of chemistry is concerned; 
and eyery serious teacher must study its 
cause and apply the remedy. 
How has this condition come about? 
Largely, I believe, as follows: A quarter of a 
century ago chemistry was almost wholly an 
empirical branch of science. Rowland used 
to say that chemistry in his day was in the 
same stage of development as physics in the 
days of Michael Faraday; and this was only 
a slightly exaggerated statement. It was 
necessary at that time to present the subject 
of chemistry largely by the empirical method. 
The result was with chemistry, as with any 
other empirical branch of science, the compre- 
hension of the subject involved primarily, and 
may I say chiefly, the memory. A reason- 
ably developed memory is much more general 
than equally well developed reasoning powers, 
and the use of the latter involves the expendi- 
ture of far more mental energy than the use 
of the former. This is the reason why chem- 
istry was regarded as easy. It was something 
that could be readily memorized. 
While this was perhaps a more or less neces- 
sary condition, several decades ago, those con- 
ditions are now largely changed. Chemistry 
is rapidly advancing along the way to become 
a branch of exact science, and it can be dealt 
with to-day in no small measure by the de- 
ductive method. 
Far be it from my purpose to make chemis- 
try hard, or even harder than is necessary for 
the best good of the science, at least in the 
early stages of the study of the subject; but a 
