390 MEETING OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 



cognition is tantamount to saying, 'We can't help acknowledging; 

 these sciences, but we want to encourage the study of them as little 

 as possible.' The medical corporation, who influence the studies 

 of the rising generation of practitioners by their examinations, have 

 not only recognized the necessity of a thorough knowledge of che- 

 mistry, but many of them require the knowledge to be acquired in 

 the lecture-room, but partly also in the laboratory. The University 

 of London is expressly to be noticed for the beneficial influence 

 which it has exerted in this direction in its medical examinations; 

 but more particularly for the institution of new degrees of Bachelor 

 and Doctor of Science, which acknowledges, for the first time in this, 

 country, the physical and natural sciences as entitled to equal re- 

 cognition with classical and mathematical studies for purposes of 

 general education. These influences have no doubt contributed 

 materially to the introduction of chemical instruction, and even 

 of practical chemistry, into junior schools, which has been going 

 on so extensively of late years. It is, however, consolatory to ob- 

 serve that a more powerful influence than any of these is at work — 

 viz., the popular appreciation of its real value, gradually raising- 

 physical science to the prominent place in national education 

 which it is destined to occupy. If education is intended to prepare 

 young people for a life of usefuluess, in which their various facul- 

 ties may be employed to the benefit of their fellow-men, and con- 

 sequently to their own, there can be no doubt of the value of teach- 

 ing them to observe, to recollect, to arrange the phenomena of 

 the physical world, and to apply the knowledge and skill thus ac- 

 quired to practical purposes. No phenomena that can be brought 

 within the observation of everybody by inexpensive experiments 

 are so simple in their nature, no reasonings, more definite and tan- 

 gible, or more easily controlled by special observations than those 

 of chemistry ; and the science affords probably scope for more 

 thorough training of the various faculties of the mind than can be 

 supplied to schools by any other means. Among the chemical 

 arts much has been doing; but, as usual, in a quite undemonstra- 

 tive way. First and foremost among improvements I must men- 

 tion the introduction into one manufacture after another of those 

 admirable furnaces invented by Mr. Siemens, and generally known 

 as regenerative furnaces. Whether we consider them from the 

 point of view of the economy of fuel, or whether as affording the 

 means of attaining temperatures beyond the range of other fur- 

 naces, there can be no doubt of the immense value of this invention. 



