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PROFESSOR MORTON’S 
into it those sentiments which raise a man high in the estimation 
of the wise and good, and justly entitle him to the proud eleva- 
tion he occupies in the scale of created beings. 
It only remains for me to endeavour to remove from your minds 
an erroneous impression, which too generally prevails, that, for 
the purpose of studying chemistry, a complicated and expensive 
apparatus is necessary. Nothing is more delusive. It is only 
its principles you require or can hope to be in possession of, and 
these may be gained with an apparatus that would not cost many 
shillings. A few empty Florence flasks, some strips of glass, 
glass tubing, a piece of wire coiled in a double spiral form for a 
stand, a lamp made from out of an ordinary vial, a wash-hand 
basin and a plate or two, a perforated saucer or a common flower 
pot, will be all that is necessary. And I would advise every one 
of you to be thus furnished, and to subject to the test of expe- 
riment the statements which from time to time are made, and, 
if you like, to repeat the experiments you see me perform. By 
so doing, the study of the science on which we are about to 
enter will be rendered both pleasing and profitable to you, for 
the truths thereof will be written upon your minds as with a pen 
of adamant. 
It may be expected that I should name the books you ought 
to study ; but so many valuable treatises have issued from the 
press, that I feel some difficulty in making a selection. I would 
advise you to read Dr. Paris’s Medical Chemistry, for it was 
written solely for the medical student, and it contains much im- 
portant and interesting matter, although it must be confessed 
that it is not so recent a publication as could be wished. Brande’s 
Manual of Chemistry stands high in my estimation for its clear- 
ness and simplicity of arrangement. Turner’s and Graham’s are 
more recent publications, and, besides these, we have Parkes’s 
Catechism, Thomson’s Outlines, Reid’s Chemical Text Book, and 
others ; so that I might almost leave you to select your own ; the 
truth being that the only difference in most of them is in manner 
and not in matter. I have taken neither one nor the other as my 
text book, my remarks not admitting of it, but have collected 
from all. Seneca says, “ the bee that sips from every flower dis- 
poses what she has gathered in her cells.” I have not evinced 
the industry of this insect, yet I can truly say that I have been 
anxious to collect all the useful matter I could obtain. 
In conclusion, allow me again to say, that, in your pursuits in 
after-life, a study of the science of chemistry — the advantages 
derivable from which I have endeavoured to point out — will be 
fraught with the highest interest. It has been well remarked, 
that “learning, if rightly applied, makes a young man thinking, 
