Having thus obtained a knowledge of the principles of the science, facility in manipulation, and reliance on his own powers of observation, the student should begin quantitative analytical work, in which he learns by degrees what scientific accuracy means, and how exact results are to be obtained by careful work. Constant personal supervision of the student is absolutely requisite, as everything depends on the care with which the various operations are carried on, working from recipes without superintendence being really valueless. One main object of this course is so to teach the pupil as to give him reliance on his own power of exact work; to inculcate habits of neatness and order; to make him aware of sources of error, and to teach him either to estimate their amount, or how, if possible, to obviate them.
On this firm foundation of a competent theoretical knowledge of inorganic and organic chemistry, and of a thorough practical acquaintance with analysis, can alone the proper and higher education of the chemist, whether for purely scientific or for technical purposes, be based. It was upon this view Roscoe consistently acted. He steadily set his face against any practising of rough-and-ready works-methods until the student had learnt to appreciate the exacter processes. It is only when he has gained the capacity for judging as to the particular applicability of a method that he should be permitted to compromise between efficiency and speed. When confidence is based upon knowledge and practice, the special circumstances of his position and his sense of responsibility, when engaged in technical work, will enable him to determine rightly when such compromise is justifiable.
As regards instruction in applied chemistry, Roscoe always held that the application can only be properly learnt in the factory or works, just as a trade cannot be taught in a school—unless, indeed, the school becomes a shop. But there is no reason why the scientific principles and details of the various industrial processes should not be brought to the knowledge of the pupil who is intended afterwards to conduct such processes. Provided a sound scientific basis is secured, such instruction, given by a teacher who has had practical as well as theoretical experience, is of great value to the technical student.
Thanks mainly to Roscoe’s example, these principles are nowadays among the commonplaces of chemical instruction, and are adopted substantially by all teachers of experience. That they commended themselves to lay minds capable of appreciating and judging them, and that the practical results of working the Owens College Chemical Department by means of them proved satisfactory, was proved by the steady increase in the number of Roscoe’s pupils, session after session, and by the variety of responsible and important positions many of these pupils subsequently filled. Another significant feature was the increasing public recognition of the meaning and value of a sound chemical education as shown by the growing willingness of parents and of young men themselves to devote such an amount of time to their studies as would enable them to obtain real benefit. He found in the earlier years of his experience that the prevailing notion of the majority of manufacturers (though there were notable exceptions) was that if the son stayed at College for six months he could be “put up” to all the necessary information to enable him to apply chemistry to his business.
The fathers (he said) frequently used to come with a story of this kind: “I am a calico-printer, or a dyer, or a brewer, and I want you to teach my son chemistry so far, and only so far, as it is at once applicable to my trade,” and when informed that chemistry as a science must be taught before its applications could be understood, and that his son could not for two or three years at least begin to work upon the subjects directly bearing on his trade, he too often replied that if that were the system he could not afford time for his son to learn on this plan, and that if he could not be taught at once to test his drugs he should prefer to leave him in the works, where he and his father before him had made a great many commercial successes with no scientific knowledge, and where he saw no reason to doubt that his son would do the same. The change that has come over our manufacturers during the last five and twenty years [this was written in 1887] has been remarkable, and now all are, I believe, fully awake to the necessities of their position, and are most desirous of improving the scientific knowledge not only of themselves and their sons, but of their managers, foremen, and workpeople. That this is so may be proved by the fact that whereas formerly it was difficult to keep our students for more than one session, we now find our senior laboratory well stocked with men in their third, fourth, and even fifth years, working at advanced subjects and becoming “chemists” in the highest and best sense of the word.
When he laid down his office he could point to the fact that his laboratories, spacious as they were thought to have been when first erected, had been more than full during the previous half-dozen years. It was calculated that upwards of two thousand men had passed through his courses. Among them were many teachers, technologists, and professional chemists occupying responsible and important positions. In the list of the Dalton Chemical Scholars, and of the Berkeley Fellows, were to be found names known in the literature of science for their scientific investigations. Indeed, no similar place in the kingdom could show such a record of contributions to chemical knowledge. Under Roscoe’s government the Owens College Chemical Laboratory furnished, from first to last, two hundred and thirty-five original communications, mainly to the Journal of the Chemical Society, or the Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal Society.
The laboratories which Roscoe designed, and which are known under his name, have long since proved inadequate to accommodate the numbers which now flock to the Manchester School of Chemistry. After Schorlemmer’s death it was found necessary to add to their number, and the new Schorlemmer laboratories, of eighty-nine working benches, were built for the special study of organic chemistry. These were in their turn overcrowded, when Mr. Andrew Carnegie, the well-known American multi-millionaire, who never forgets he was born on British soil, presented the University with £10,000 to erect buildings, on condition that they should be called the John Morley Laboratories, in honour of his friend Viscount Morley of Blackburn, the eminent historian and statesman, and now Chancellor of the Victoria University.
On October 4, 1909, Roscoe was requested to open formally the new laboratories, when he remarked: “It was very gratifying to know that Mr. Carnegie, who has spent millions of money on founding public libraries all over the English-speaking countries, seemed to be turning his attention to the foundation of laboratories which, in my opinion, was of still greater consequence.” A characteristic remark which those who knew the speaker would be quite prepared to hear.