Service Chemistry

Abstract

IN this book Prof. Lewes treats of chemistry in its relations to the subjects which are of immediate interest and importance to our naval and military services, Although primarily intended for the officers passing through the Royal Naval College, much of the matter of the book has a direct bearing on the work of the soldier. The necessity for such a book is obvious. Of course, as Mr. Lewes is careful to point out, there is but one chemistry, and its principles and theories are the same, no matter how the science is made subservient to the wants and different callings of men. But it is manifestly absurd to suppose that our soldiers and sailors need to be taken over the whole field of chemical science in order to obtain such a knowledge of those principles as will be of use to them in their professions. No doubt, in the interests of knowledge itself no course of instruction can be too extended, but in the case of the officers of both branches of the service there is the practical difficulty of time. The scheme of instruction at our naval and military colleges is so elaborate, and the amount of time allowed for study is, comparatively speaking, so limited, that it is absolutely necessary that the teachers of chemistry in such colleges shall restrict themselves to the treatment of the relations of chemistry to the practical work of the services. Nor will the teachers have cause to complain of any lack of subject-matter for their lectures. Even if the young officer came to his work with a fuller knowledge of the elementary principles and facts of chemical science than is usually furnished to him at school, so that his teacher at college could at once proceed to treat of its technical bearings so far as these have reference to the work of the soldier and sailor, there would still be ample matter for even the most extended course of instruction that would be practically possible. Of this fact Prof. Lewes's book gives ample evidence. The general character of our public-school education, in spite of recommendations of Royal Commissions and British Association Committees, and repeated warnings of men like Huxley and Spencer that the conditions of modern civilization imperatively require a readjustment of the curriculum of our schools, is still such that the teacher has to assume an entire ignorance of even the most elementary facts of physical science. The students at the Royal Naval College are no doubt largely recruited from the public schools. Any well-devised scheme of school instruction ought, one would think, to give them such a knowledge of the rudiments of chemistry as to obviate the necessity for the teacher to spend a considerable fraction of the limited time at his disposal in discussing such matters as nomenclature and notation, formulæ and equations, the simple laws of chemical combination, effects of temperature and pressure on gases, and so on. But Prof. Lewes no doubt, as indeed his book demonstrates, finds it absolutely necessary to deal with these preliminary matters in the outset of his course. Hence the book naturally divides itself into two portions—one, and of course the most important portion, treating of the technical relations of chemistry to the work of the services; and the other treating of such of the general principles of the science as are necessary to an intelligent appreciation of these relations. The latter portion, of course, precedes the former in the actual plan of the book.

Service Chemistry.

By Vivian B. Lewes, Professor of Chemistry, Royal Naval College, Greenwich. (London: Whittingham and Co., 1889.)