314 
LIVERPOOL CHEMISTS’ ASSOCIATION. 
the most over-worked and ill-paid members of the community. As Mr. Long said last 
week of the medical profession, “ ours is a noble art, but a poor trade,” but the present 
time is not without omens of better times ahead. 
The bad consequences of a false start are instructively shown in the early history of 
Berzelius, the eminent Swedish chemist, who may perhaps be called the father of mo¬ 
dern chemistry; while at the same time his success, in spite of immense opposition, 
affords the highest encouragement to the young resolutely to go forward with dauntless 
will till every obstacle is overcome. Early an orphan, it is related that “ he was for some 
years under the care of a pious Swedish clergyman, with whom he read a chapter of 
the Bible every morning, and one of ‘ Sturm’s Reflections’ every afternoon, preparatory 
to his daily walk. In the course of one of these walks it is related, that, struck with 
his eagerness in collecting plants, and with the acuteness of his observations, his step¬ 
father remarked, ‘ Jacob, thou hast talent enough to walk in the footsteps either of 
Linnaeus or Cartouche,—I hope thou hast God before thy eyes, and so wilt thou do the 
former.’ Yet for some time he gave little prospect of the fulfilment of these hopes. 
Bandied about from house to house, and brought up among connections who looked 
upon him as a burden, his vigour, though unbroken, was long subdued. When his 
childhood was over, he spent four unprofitable years at the school of Nordkbping, and 
quitted it along with some other young men for the University of Upsala; but opposite 
to his name in the list forwarded by the Rector of the school to the University autho¬ 
rities, w T ere the words ‘ Indifferent in behaviour, and of doubtful hope.’ He was re¬ 
ceived, therefore, with reserve, and regarded with suspicion; his first year was passed 
idly, and consequently, in his ‘ Examen,’ the professor of chemistry was so dissatisfied 
with his answers as to say to his brother professors that ‘ he would not send the young 
man back if they were satisfied with him.’ He was thus partially disgraced, and, it is 
probable, roused thereby to exertion. He was nineteen years of age when he began to 
frequent the laboratory of the professor, then, as now, in the Continental universities, 
open to the students. But his evil name accompanied him thither ; on one of his first 
visits he was- encountered by the question, ‘If he understood the difference between a 
laboratory and a kitchen ?’ and finally the treatment of the laborator drove him from 
it in disgust. Meanwhile he studied assiduously at his lodgings, without counsel or 
advice, and the despised pupil succeeded, in his own apartments, in preparing oxygen 
gas, and showing the combustion of various substances in it, to his fellow-students, 
although in the laboratory for a whole year the attempt had been made in vain.” The 
sudden and unexpected acquisition of a glass retort by surreptitious means, with which 
he experimented at home, in the silence and solitude of night, led to his first chemical 
discovery. The searching spirit which years before had struck his step-father in the 
child, had begun again to animate the young man; and though years of difficulty and 
struggle afterwards beset the man, this keen spirit never once forsook him. Professors 
opposed him in his examinations, and academies returned his papers with cold scorn. 
As the reviewer sums up, “ the early life of Berzelius was thus a constant struggle with 
poverty, with unkindness, and with many difficulties, which had originated in an idle, 
listless, and unconciliatory disposition, itself the fruit of a depressed and half-broken 
spirit. How different the opinion formed of him by his teachers from that which his 
pupils and friends universally entertained in after-life. The mental discipline he under¬ 
went at college, probably, however, improved him as a man ; and had he not thus been 
almost forced into the study of experimental science, to which his mind seemed early 
and naturally predisposed, he might have passed a life of little comfort to himself, and 
of no value to his country.” 
Need I remind you of the great advantages offered for the acquisition of knowledge 
by our excellent Library and Museum, in addition to the papers read at our fortnightly 
meetings, and also of the Chemical and Pharmaceutical Class, now placed under the 
joint superintendence of Dr. Edwards and Mr. Nathan Mercer? The latter, I trust, will 
be well attended through the coming session. The whole of these form such a com¬ 
bined assemblage of privileges as few provincial towns can boast. The remembrance of 
the good old cathedral city in the midland counties, where I served my apprenticeship, 
now nearly twenty-five years ago, often comes across my mind in strange contrast to 
what I see now, and I think what would I have given to share in the stirring question¬ 
ings and stimulating fellowship of inquirers which your Association presents. 
But I must not forget that an inaugural address, without a retrospect and a prophecy, 
