OCTOBBE 26, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



639 



When the success of this laboratory had 

 been clearly established many other towns 

 discovered the necessity for similar institu- 

 tions, and in a comparatively short time 

 every university in Germany possessed a 

 chemical laboratory. The teaching of prac- 

 tical chemisti'y in other countries was, how- 

 ever, of very slow growth ; in France, for 

 example, Wurtz in 1869 drew attention to 

 the fact that there was at that time only 

 one laboratory which could compare with 

 the German laboratories, namely, that of 

 the Ecole Normale Superieure. 



In this country the provision of suitable 

 laboratories for the study of chemistry 

 seems to date from the year 1845, when the 

 College of Chemistry was founded in Lon- 

 don, an institution which under A. W. 

 Hofmann's guidance rapidly rose to such a 

 prominent position. 



In 1851 Frankland was appointed to the 

 chair of chemistry in the new college 

 founded in Manchester by the trustees of 

 John Owens, and here he equipped a lab- 

 oratory for the teaching of practical chem- 

 istry. Under Sir Henry Roscoe this labor- 

 atory soon became too small for the grow- 

 ing number of chemical students, a defect 

 which was removed when the new build- 

 ings of the college were opened in 1873. In 

 1849 Alexander Williamson was appointed 

 Professor of Practical Chemistry at Uni- 

 versity College, London, where he intro- 

 duced the practical methods of Liebig. 



Following these examples, the older uni- 

 versities gradually came to see the necessity 

 for providing accommodation for the prac- 

 tical teaching of chemistry, with the result 

 that well-equipped laboratoi-ies have been 

 erected in all the centers of learning in this 

 country. 



Since Liebig, by the establishment of the 

 Giessen Laboratory, must be looked upon 

 as the pioneer in the development of prac- 

 tical laboratory teaching, it will be inter- 

 esting to endeavor to obtain some idea of 



the methods which he used in the training 

 of the students who attended his laboratory 

 in Giessen. From small beginnings he 

 gradually introduced a systematic course of 

 practical chemistry, and a careful compari- 

 son shows that this was similar in many 

 ways to that in use at the present day. 

 The student at Giessen, after preparing the 

 more important gases, was carefully trained 

 in qualitative and quantitative analysis ; 

 he was then required to make a large num- 

 ber of preparations, after which he engaged 

 in original research. 



Although there is, as far as I have been 

 able to ascertain, no printed record of the 

 nature of the quantitative work and the 

 preparations which Liebig required from 

 his students, the course of qualitative anal- 

 ysis is easily followed, owing to the ex- 

 istence of a most interesting book published 

 for the use of the Giessen students. 



In 1846, at Liebig's request, Henry Will, 

 Ph.D., Extraordinary Professor of Chem- 

 istry in the University of Giessen, wrote a 

 small book, for use at Giessen, called 'Gies- 

 sen Outlines of Analysis,' which shows 

 clearly the kind of instruction given in that 

 laboratory at the time in so far as quali- 

 tative analysis is concerned. This book, 

 which contains a preface by Liebig, is par- 

 ticularly interesting on account of the fact 

 that it is evidently the first Introduction to 

 Analysis intended for the training of ele- 

 mentary students which was ever published. 

 In the preface Liebig writes : " The want 

 of an introduction to chemical analysis 

 adapted for the use of a laboratory has 

 given rise to the present work, which con- 

 tains an accurate description of the course 

 I have followed in my laboratory with great 

 advantage for twenty-five years. It has 

 been prepared at my request by Professor 

 Will, who has been my assistant during a 

 great part of this period." 



This book undoubtedly had a consider- 

 able circulation, and was used in most of 



