100 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 342. 



may direct. On the return of the expedi- 

 tion you will be expected to superintend 

 the distribution of specimens to specialists 

 approved of by the two councils or their 

 representatives, and to edit the resulting 

 reports. You will also be expected to con- 

 tribute a report on the scientific results of 

 the expedition for the official narrative. As 

 it may be desirable during the progress of 

 the voyage that some new scientific dis- 

 covery should be at once made known in the 

 interests of science, you will, in such a case, 

 inform us of it by the earliest opportunity. 



7. You and the other members of the 

 expedition will not be at liberty, without 

 our consent, to make any communication 

 to the press on matters relating in any way 

 to the affairs of the expedition, nor to publish 

 independent narratives until six months 

 after the issue of the official narrative. All 

 communications are to be made to us, ad- 

 dressed to the care of the secretary of the 

 National Antarctic Expedition, London. 



8. Should any vacancies in the scientific 

 staff occur after the expedition has sailed from 

 England, you may, with the concurrence 

 of the commander, make such arrangements 

 as you think desirable to fill the same, should 

 no one have been appointed from England. 



9. You and the members of the scientific 

 staff will be cabin passengers joining the 

 expedition at your own risk, and neither 

 the owners nor the captain are to be respon- 

 sible for any accident or misfortune which 

 may happen to you. You will obtain from 

 each member a letter to this effect. 



The instructions are signed by the Presi- 

 dents of the K-oyal Society and the Eoyal 

 Geographical Society. 



TEACHING OF CHEMISTRY IN SCHOOLS— 



1876, 1901* 



Before comparing, or contrasting, the 

 teaching of chemistry twenty-five years ago 



■* Eead at the 25th anniversary of the American 

 Chemical Society. 



with that of to-daj^^, it seems desirable to 

 trace briefly the evolution of chemistry 

 from a much earlier period. This will en- 

 able us to see at what part of the evolution- 

 ary line high-school chemistrj' had arrived 

 when the American Chemical Society was 

 founded, and where it now is. 



In the alchemistic age the effort was to 

 conceal, not reveal, facts. All the language 

 is most obscure, and writers are pervaded 

 with the idea that the wrath of God will 

 rest upon them if they reveal the secretsof 

 their laboratories. Basil Valentine says he 

 fears he has spoken so plainly that he shall 

 be doomed at the last great day ; but the 

 modern French writer Figuier facetiously 

 remarks that all the adepts who have ever 

 tried to decipher his language regard it as 

 certain that he was one of the elect. There 

 was no teaching, as there was no science. 

 A little later, when an alchemist disclosed 

 the philosopher's stone or the elixir it was 

 to a few persons for large money considera- 

 tions. If he made pretended transforma- 

 tions into gold in presence of spectators, the 

 methods were kept secret. 



With the advent of scientific chemistry, 

 even among the phlogistics, secrecy became 

 a lost art. Experiments began to be writ- 

 ten about and talked of, but were not at 

 first made in public. Books contained no 

 illustrations. The question and answer 

 method got into chemistry as in all other 

 teaching. Jane Marcet's little book ' Con- 

 versations on Chemistry,' first published in 

 London in 1806 — which ran through 20 

 editions and was revised as late as 1855 — 

 set two generations to thinking of the mar- 

 velous revelations of nature. It consisted 

 wholly of questions and. answers, onl}^ the 

 later editions being illustrated. 



With the Lavoisierian chemistrj^ — in fact, 

 antedating it somewhat — came the demon- 

 strative lecture method of teaching. As the 

 professor — for this was a feature of colleges 

 and medical schools only — performed his 



