OKLAHOMA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 17 



depends. By means of knowledge we raise ourselves above every- 

 body else." 



In 1843 he achieved his ambition of entering the Ecole Normale 

 and devoted himself to his favorite study — chemistry, and three 

 years later received his degree in the physical sciences. He greatly 

 feared that he would be sent to some distant place where he could 

 not carry on his researches. Fortunately this was not true. He 

 became an assistant professor of Physical Science at the Ecole 

 Normale and continued his researches in crystallography with 

 keen vision. This work was carried on with tartrates and he found 

 two forms of crystals present. He says : "I separated with care 

 the right and left handed liemihedral crystals and observed sep- 

 arately their solutions in the polarization apparatus. Then with no 

 less surprise than joy I saw that the right handed hemihedral 

 crystals turned to the right and the left handed ones to the left, 

 the plane of polarization, and when I took equal weights of each 

 of these kinds of crystals the mixed solution was neutral to palor- 

 ized light because of the neutralization of the two equal and op- 

 posite individual deviations." Furthermore he found that these 

 hemihedral crystals rotated the polarized light the distance to the 

 left that tartaric acid of the grape in equal concentrated solutions 

 deviated it to the right. 



In 1848 he was sent by the order of the Minister of Instruction 

 to the Lycee at Dijon as Professor of Physics. As he had to 

 abandon his experimental courses and his researches he asked to 

 be transferred and in January 1849 he was appointed professor of 

 chemistry at the University of Strasburg where he continued his 

 researches in spite of scanty equipment. 



On Pasteur's first visit to the president of the University of 

 Strassburg, he became interested in one of his daughters and less 

 than fifteen days after his arrival, he asked for her hand in 

 marriage. This union proved to be a most happy one and till the 

 end of his life Madame Pasteur surrounded him with tender and 

 devoted care. He now prosecuted his researches with renewed 

 energy and in 1853, he made racemic acid artifically. As a reward 

 for this discovery the Society of Chemistry bestowed a prize of 

 1500 francs upon him. The Government had been following his 

 achievements and gave him the Cross of the Legion of Honor when 

 he was barely 30 years old. 



In his studies with tartrates Pasteur noticed that they undergo 

 fermentations and he believed this was due to a microscopic organ- 

 ism. This idea caused him to turn to a study of the origin of life. 



When Pasteur began his studies on fermentation, a belief 



