Abstract
I FEEL that the present occasion, upon which you have o done me the honour to ask me to preside, is one of very great importance indeed, and I wish some person more competent to preside on such an occasion and give a suitable inaugural address were in my place. I am afraid I must confine myself to something not at all worthy of the greatness of an occasion which is almost the opening of a new university. Not quite so, because the real opening of this college took place several months ago; but still it is an occasion which I feel to be much more than merely the opening of a department—a working department—in the college; an occasion of so great moment that I regret that I shall not be able to give anything that could be properly considered a worthy inaugural address. I shall be obliged to ask your indulgence if I confine myself specially to departments with which I am personally familiar-scientific laboratories. The laboratory of a scientific man is his place of work. The laboratory of the geologist and of the naturalist is the face of this beautiful world. The geologist's laboratory is the mountain, the ravine, and the seashore. The naturalist and the botanist go to foreign lands, to study the wonders of nature, and describe and classify the results of their observations. But they must do more than merely describe, represent, and depict what they have seen. They must bring home the products of their expeditions to their studies, and have recourse to the appliances of the laboratory properly so-called for their thorough and detailed examination. The naturalist in his laboratory with his microscope and appliances for the keenest examination, learns to know more than can be learned by merely looking at external beauties. The geologist brings his specimens to the chemist—is himself a chemist perhaps—brings his crystals to the physical laboratory to be examined as to their physical properties, their hardness, the angles between their faces, their optical qualities. Some people might think this an ignoble way to deal with crystals. But it is not so to the trained eye and deeper thought of the scientific man. The scientific man sees and feels beauty as much as any mere observer—as much as any artist or painter. But he also sees something underlying that beauty; he wishes to learn something of the actions and forces producing those beautiful results. The necessity for study below the surface seems to have been earliest recognised in anatomy, and earliest carried out in human anatomy. I am not going to speak of the work of scientific research generally, but with reference to the special occasion which brings us here this day—the opening of the chemical and physical laboratories of the University College of North Wales. I am going to speak of laboratories for students, laboratories in which the students work with their own hands. There have been laboratories of investigation from the earliest times. No doubt Aristotle had his; and Archimedes had a laboratory wherever he went-in his bath, even, he observed, and studied, and thought out the laws of hydrostatics. But those were not students' laboratories, and our special subject to-day is a students' laboratory, where they can meet together for the practical study of the various departments of science, where they will be brought together to use their eyes and hands—their eyes otherwise than in merely reading books and looking at pictures or drawings; their eyes to observe accurately, and their hands to experiment, in order to learn more than can be learned by mere observation. To teach students to so work and so learn is the object of a scientific students' laboratory.
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Scientific Laboratories 1 . Nature 31, 409–413 (1885). https://doi.org/10.1038/031409e0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/031409e0