192 
CLARKE. 
schools of science developed more rapidly, and in the Law¬ 
rence Scientific School particularly the research method of 
instruction was pushed into great prominence by Wolcott 
Gibbs. Hitherto our professors of chemistry had been com¬ 
monly content with teaching what was already known, but 
under Gibbs the student was taught to think and to discover. 
Training in the art of solving unsolved problems became a 
part of the school curriculum. This phase of chemical edu¬ 
cation was brought into still greater prominence some years 
later in the laboratory of the Johns Hopkins University, and 
now it is well-nigh universal. Original research, once an 
occasional feature of American college work, is now empha¬ 
sized in all of our better universities, and the student’s thesis 
outweighs his examination in importance. At first, as was 
but natural, our educational system was modeled after that 
of England, with Oxford and Cambridge as the shining ex¬ 
amples to follow. Here, as there, the passing of examina¬ 
tions was the one supreme test of scholarship; but the growth 
of science in Germany attracted our better students thither, 
and they returned full of the modern doctrines. The Ger¬ 
man graft upon our English stock has made our universities 
what they are today; and now the man who can increase 
knowledge is more highly esteemed than him who merely 
knows. The knowledge which is fruitful outranks the sterile 
culture whose end is in itself. In all departments of learn¬ 
ing, education has become more vital, more of a living force; 
and in this great movement forward the chemist has been a 
leader and a pioneer. 
For many, many years the chemists of America were un¬ 
organized, a thousand scattered units, each doing what he 
could as an individual, but with no bond of union other than 
that of a common interest. Here and there chemical societies 
were founded, to last for a year or two and then perish for 
lack of proper support. They were local experiments, noth¬ 
ing more, and no list of them could be made. In the more 
general societies, like the American Academy in Boston and 
the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, the chem- 
