Modern inorganic chemistry / by J.W. Mellor.

  • Mellor, Joseph William, 1869-1938.
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Modern inorganic chemistry / by J.W. Mellor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/900
    PREFACE The true aim of the teacher must be to impart an appreciation of method, and not a knowledge of facts.—K. Pearson. The power to recognize and to follow truth cannot be conferred by academical degrees. —Paracelsus. Every teacher now recognizes that it is a sheer waste of time to introduce many abstract ideas into an elementary science course without a previous survey of facts from which the generalizations can be derived. In most cases the historical mode of treatment is correct, because the generaliza- tions have usually been developed from a contemplation of the facts; in other cases the historical treatment may involve digressions which would seriously interfere with the efficiency of the course. Obviously, a teacher will try his best to instil the maximum amount of scientific method into the facts—as prescribed by his syllabus and time-table—always remember- ing that the student gets more lasting benefit from the method than from the facts per se. In after-life the scientific method may be retained as a permanent attitude of the mind when the facts themselves are nearly all forgotten. Consequently, the justification for a general course in chemistry must be sought in the mind of the student rather than m the facts of the science. What, then, may a student expect from a general course of chemistry? 1. Skill in observation and cxjjeriment.—All are agreed that personal contact with facts is a great advantage. The constant absorption of statements and opinions from text-books makes a student lean so much on authority that he ultimately becomes un- fitted for independent observation. Habits of self-reliance, resource, and initiative can be acquired only in the laboratory, or by direct contact with natural phenomena. But practice in observation and experunent is not alone sufficient to develop the scientific faculty. The observational powers of a savage arc usually keener than those