Practical Inorganic Chemistry

Abstract

IT is gratifying to all who are. interested in scientific education to know that instruction in elementary science in this country is steadily improving, both in methods of teaching and in the subjects taught. In the spring of this year, a new scheme of work for organised science schools was issued by the Department of Science and Art. These schools include all the best carried on in connection with the Department, and for some time a definite scheme of study, extending over three years, has been followed in them. What the Department did recently was to issue a remodelled scheme for such schools, embodying several commendable features. Elementary practical physics was introduced as an obligatory subject, and a course of real chemistry was substituted for the drill of test-tubing, which had gone under the name of practical chemistry for so long. Dr. Turpin's book has been designed to meet the improved requirements; and, as it has had a reasonable basis for its construction, it possesses many good qualities. The course of work described begins with weighing, measuring, the determination of relative density, and other elementary physical principles; then follows a chapter on mixtures and com pounds, and another on the setting-up of apparatus. After this fundamental knowledge has been experimentally studied, the constitution of the air is investigated, and then the most important gases, and common chemical compounds, form the subjects of the student's work for the remainder of the course. We cannot speak too highly of the introduction of such a course of work as is herein described. It encourages thought, creates interest in chemistry, and furnishes the kind of knowledge most likely to prove of advantage in after years. Not only in organised science schools, but in every school where chemistry is taught, the course described in this book could be profitably introduced.

Practical Inorganic Chemistry.

By Dr. G. S. Turpin Pp. 158. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1895.)