Laboratory Practice: A Series of Experiments on the Fundamental Principles of Chemistry

Abstract

THIS little book represents another attempt to teach the theory of chemistry upon the basis of a narrowly restricted experience of facts and phenomena. Whether this is possible is a question debatable, and still, in fact, debated among teachers. That it is possible to make the study of chemistry by young people, as a form of intellectual exercise, more useful than has usually been the case there can be no doubt, and that much instruction could be got out of a course such as this which is indicated in Prof. Cooke's little work is certain. The book appears to be intended as a guide for the teacher as much as for the pupil, and much would depend upon the qualifications of the former for the work of demonstration and exposition. It contains directions for the performance of a system of experiments; and to do justice to the system the teacher ought carefully to study the instructions given in the introduction, and to act upon them. And to those who know anything of the manner in which chemistry is too often taught in the schools of this country, either by the visiting “science teacher,” who knows little, or by the mathematical master, who usually knows nothing at all about the subject, such remarks as the following, taken from the introduction, will seem particularly welcome and appropriate.

Laboratory Practice: A Series of Experiments on the Fundamental Principles of Chemistry.

A Companion Volume to “The New Chemistry.” By Josiah Parsons Cooke., Erving Professor, and Director of the Chemical Laboratory, Harvard University. Pp. 192. (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, and Co., 1892.)

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