CHEMISTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 
185 
cal department of the University of Pennsylvania, an event 
which marks the first recognition of the science in the United 
States by any institution of learning. Other medical schools 
soon followed .the example thus set, and chemistry took its 
place as a regular subject for study. Rush, however, wms not 
specifically a chemist; he had indeed been a pupil of Black 
in Edinburgh; but he carried out no chemical investiga¬ 
tions, and added nothing to the sum of chemical knowledge. 
His high reputation was won in other fields, but as the first 
professor of chemistry in America he occupies a historical 
position. 
In 1795 the trustees of Nassau Hall, now Princeton Univer¬ 
sity, elected Dr. John Maclean professor of chemistry. Other 
colleges soon followed the lead of Princeton, and within a 
very few years chemical science was well established as a dis¬ 
tinct branch of study in many American institutions. The 
teaching, however, was wholly by textbooks and lectures, the 
laboratory method w T as unknown, and the teacher commonly 
divided his attention between chemistry and other themes. 
There were professors of chemistry and natural philosophy, 
of chemistry and natural history, but rarely, if ever, professors 
of chemistry alone. Moreover, little time was given to the 
subject; the classics and mathematics overshadowed all other 
studies, and the pupil learned hardly more than a few scat¬ 
tered facts and the barest outline of chemical theory. When 
we note that today Harvard University employs twenty-two 
persons—professors, assistant professors, instructors and as¬ 
sistants—in chemistry alone, we begin to realize the great 
advance which has been made in the teaching of science since 
the days of Maclean, Hare, and the elder Silliman. 
In 1794 Joseph Priestley, the famous discoverer of oxygen, 
driven from his English home by religious persecution, sought 
refuge in America. He took up his abode at Northumber¬ 
land, in Pennsylvania, where he died in 1804, and where his 
remains lie buried. His coming greatly stimulated the grow¬ 
ing interest in chemistry upon this side of the Atlantic, for 
Priestley entered at once into close relations with many 
