"A course for gentlemen will commence on Tuesday and will terminate in the last week of February. The hour will be seven o'clock in the evening. Two lectures at least, sometimes three, will be delivered every week. About 1500 interesting experiments will be exhibited and submitted to the familiar inspection of the class. Several important experiments not hitherto introduced in any series of chemical demonstrations in this place will be displayed in the illustrations of different subjects.
"The laboratory is in the lecturer's house in South Ninth Street, opposite the University and is furnished with an excellent chemical apparatus.
"The tickets for this course will be ten dollars. The persons to take tickets will be entitled to the use of the lecturer's excellent medical and chemical library during the season.
"Persons wishing to attend this course will please call at the lecturer's home at any time before next Tuesday in order to enter the names on the list.
"Ladies are informed that the list of subscribers to their course will not be closed until next Monday at twelve o'clock at the hour the next lecture, properly the first of the regular series, will be delivered. Gentlemen are not admitted to these lectures."
In 1810 Dr. Rogers gave out a Syllabus of 12 octavo pages "On Experimental Lectures on Natural Philosophy and Chemistry," in which great emphasis was laid on the practical application of these sciences. It also stated that "it is even esteemed, in some measure, a cause of shame, for persons of respectable education, to be ignorant of their general principles." In one newspaper announcement Rogers said that in order to get sufficient space for his audience he had procured the "use of the elegant and spacious ball room of M. Guillou." In this special work he was repeating the labors of Sir Humphrey Davy in London. In reality, Rogers and his contemporaries and coadjutors were pioneer University Extension Lecturers. They sought to popularize the natural and physical sciences and also broaden the vision or outlook of their hearers. In the case of Cutbush there was a strong desire to utilize chemistry in manufacture. This he emphasized more strongly than any other lecturer.
Another participant in the science propaganda was Dr. Thomas P. Jones, who devoted himself to Chemistry. The following notice of his lecture course is not devoid of interest:
"On Saturday, the 13th inst., at seven o'clock in the evening, at Dr. Jones' Chemical Lecture Room, S.W. Corner of Fourth and Chestnut Streets, a lecture will be delivered on the properties of nitrous oxide, or the exhilarating gas, accompanied with a number of experiments. A large quantity will be prepared to exhibit its effects when inhaled.
"Tickets at fifty cents each may be had at A. Finley's Bookstore, S.E. Cor. of Chestnut and Fourth Streets, or at the lecture room on the stated evening."
On perusing early chemical texts and advertisements, such as those just given, attention is pointedly called to nitrous oxide, especially to its exhilarating properties, for then it was "laughing gas!" One Philip H. Nicklin published a brochure entitled