Large-scale Chemistry at the Imperial College of Science and Technology

Abstract

IT is now generally recognised that a student in chemistry who wishes to rise to any position of prominence in his profession, either in the industry or in academic life, must first obtain a thorough grounding in his subject by passing through a recognised honours school, and that he must then devote one or two years to training in the methods of research. It is usually during the third year of his honours course that the student first comes in contact with the realities of organic chemistry, and a considerable portion of his time during this period is devoted to a series of preparations in the organic laboratory. The organic laboratory is generally fitted with every type of glass and porcelain apparatus necessary for the student's needs, and he learns here the usual operations and requirements involved in the preparation of a number of typical organic substances. This training is undoubtedly of the greatest value, yet, because someone at some time ordained that there should be two kinds of chemistry, namely, that carried out in glass vessels and that effected in vessels of metal, the unfortunate student, who must needs satisfy a board of examiners who have passed through the same course as he, is instructed in the former kind of chemistry, and left either to imagine the fundamental conditions underlying the latter kind or to learn them in sorrow and tribulation under the more exacting conditions of the factory.