October 26, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



643 



own views on the subject — views which, no 

 doubt, may diffei' much from those of many 

 of the teachers present at this meeting. 

 The objects to be attained are, in my opin- 

 ion, to give the student a sufficient knowl- 

 edge of the broad facts of chemistry, and at 

 the same time so to arrange his practical 

 work in particular as to always have in 

 view the training of his faculty of original 

 thought. 



I think it will be conceded that any stu- 

 dent, if he is to make his mark in chem- 

 istry by original work, must ultimately 

 specialize in some branch of the subject. 

 It may be possible for some great minds to 

 do valuable original work in more than one 

 branch of chemistry, but these are the ex- 

 ceptions ; and as time goes on, and the mass 

 of facts accumulates, this will become more 

 and more impossible. Now a student at 

 the commencement of his career rarely 

 knows which branch of the subject will 

 fascinate him most, and I think, therefore, 

 that it is necessary, in the first place, to do 

 all that is possible to give him a thorough 

 grounding in all branches of the subject. 

 In my opinion the student is taken over too 

 much ground in the lecture courses of the 

 present day : in inorganic chemistry, for ex- 

 ample, the study of the rare metals and 

 their reactions might be dispensed with, as 

 well as many of the more difficult chapters 

 of physical chemistry, and in organic chem- 

 istry such complicated problems as the con- 

 stitutions of uric acid and the members of 

 the camphor and terpene series, etc., might 

 well be left out. As matters stand now, 

 instruction must be given on these subjects 

 simply because questions bearing on them 

 will probably be asked at the examination. 



And here perhaps I might make a con- 

 fession, in which I do not ask my fellow- 

 teachers to join me. My name is often at- 

 tached to chemistry papers which I should 

 be sorry to have to answer ; and it seems to 

 me the standard of examination papers, and 



especially of Honors examination papers, is 

 far too high. Should we demand a pitch 

 of knowledge which our own experience 

 tells us can not be maintained for long? 



In dealing with the question of teaching 

 practical chemistry it may be hoped, in the 

 first place, that in the near future a sound 

 training will be given in elementary science 

 in most schools, very much on the lines 

 which I mentioned in the first part of this 

 address. The student will then be in a fit 

 state to undergo a thoroughly satisfactory 

 course of training in inorganic chemistry 

 during his first two years at college. With- 

 out wishing in any way to map out a 

 definite course, I may be allowed to suggest 

 that instead of much of the usual qualita- 

 tive and quantitative analysis, practical 

 exercises similar to the following will be 

 found to be of much greater educational 

 value. 



(1) The careful experimental demonstra- 

 tion of the fundamental laws of chemistry 

 and physical chemistry. 



(2) The preparation of a series of com- 

 pounds of the more important metals, either 

 from their more common ores or from the 

 metals themselves. With the aid of the 

 compounds thus prepared the reactions of 

 the metals might be studied and the simi- 

 larities and differences between the differ- 

 ent metals then carefully noted. 



(3) A course in which the student should 

 investigate in certain selected cases : (a) the 

 conditions under which action takes place ; 

 (5) the nature of the products formed ; (c) 

 the yield obtained. If he were then to pro- 

 ceed to prepare each product in a state of 

 purity, he would be doing a series of exer- 

 cises of the highest educational value. 



(4) The determination of the combining 

 weights of some of the more important 

 metals. This is in most cases compara- 

 tively simple, as the determination of the 

 combining weights of selected metals can be 

 very accurately carried out by measuring 



