632 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol XII. No. 304. 



necessity for attention to the small details 

 as an element of success. He says : 



" The foregoing account of the small 

 changes which have been made in the Cross- 

 ley telescope and its accessories may appear 

 to be unnecessarily detailed, yet these small 

 changes have greatly increased the practical 

 efficiency of the instrument, and therefore, 

 small as they are, they are important. Par- 

 ticularly with an instrument of this charac- 

 ter, the difference between poor and good 

 results lies in the observance of just such 

 small details as I have described." 



C. D. Peeeine. 



Lick Observatory, 

 Univbesity of California, 

 September 23, 1900. 



ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE CHEM- 

 ICAL SECTION OF THE BRITISH 

 ASSOCIATION. 



THE MODERN SYSTEM OF TEACHING PEACTIOAL 

 INOEGANIC CHEMISTEY AND ITS DEVELOP- 

 MENT. 



In choosing for the subject of my Ad- 

 dress to-day the development of the teach- 

 ing of practical inorganic chemistrj^ I do so, 

 not only on account of the great importance 

 of the subject, but also because it does not 

 appear that this matter has been brought 

 before this Section, in the President's Ad- 

 dress at all events, during the last few 

 years. 



In dealing generally with the subject of 

 the teaching of chemistry as a branch of sci- 

 ence it maj^ be well in the first place to con- 

 sider the value of such teaching as a means 

 of general education, and to turn our atten- 

 tion for a few minutes to the development 

 of the teaching of science in schools. 



There can be no doubt that there has 

 been great progress in the teaching of sci- 

 ence in schools during the last forty years, 

 and this is very evident from the perusal 

 of the essay, entitled ' Education : Intellec- 

 tual, Moral, and Physical,' which Herbert 



Spencer wrote in 1859. After giving his rea- 

 sons for considering the study of science of 

 primary importance in education, Herbert 

 Spencer continues: " While what we call 

 civilization could never have arisen had it 

 not been for science, science forms scarcely 

 an appreciable element in our so-called 

 civilized training." 



From this it is apparent that science was 

 not taught to any appreciable extent in 

 schools at that date, though doubtless in 

 some few schools occasional lectures were 

 given on such scientific subjects as physi- 

 ology, anatomy, astronomy and mechanics. 



Herbert Spencer's pamphlet appears to 

 have had only a very gradual effect towards 

 the introduction of science into schemes of 

 education. For many years chemical in- 

 struction was only given in schools at the 

 schoolroom desk, or at the best from the 

 lecture table, and many of the most modern 

 of schools had no laboratories. 



The first school to give any practical in- 

 struction in chemistry was apparently the 

 City of London School, at which, in the 

 year 1847, Mr. Hall was appointed teacher 

 of chemistiy, and there he continued to 

 teach until 1869.* Besides the lecture thea- 

 ter and a room for storing apparatus, Mr. 

 Hall's department contained a long room, 

 or rather passage, leading into the lecture 

 theater, and closed at each end with glass 

 doors. In this room, which was fitted up as a 

 laboratory, and used principally as a prepa- 

 ration room for the lectures, Mr. Hall per- 

 formed experiments with the few boys who 

 assisted him with his lectures. As accommo- 

 dation was at that time strictly limited, he 

 used to suggest simple experiments and 



*Mr. A. T. Pollard, M.A., Head Master of the 

 City of London School, has kindly instituted a search 

 among the bound copies of the boys' terminal re- 

 ports, and informs me that in the School form of 

 Terminal Report a heading for Chemistry was intro- 

 duced in the year 1847, the year of Mr. Hall's ap- 

 pointment. 



