intrinsic truth, and the careful avoidance of all pretense in the
explanations; it was the most complete contrast to the German
lectures, in which the whole scientific teaching had lost its solid
construction through the preponderance of the deductive method.
An accidental occurrence drew A. von Humboldt's attention to me in Paris, and the interest which he took in me induced Gay-Lussac to complete, in conjunction with me, a piece of work which I had begun. In this manner I had the good fortune to enjoy the closest intercourse with the great natural philosopher; he worked with me as he had formerly worked with Thenard; and I can well say that the foundation of all my later work and of my whole course was laid in his laboratory in the arsenal.
I returned to Germany, where through the school of Berzelius, H. Rose, Mitscherlich, Magnus, and Wöhler, a great revolution in inorganic chemistry had already commenced. Through the support of von Humboldt's warm recommendation, an extraordinary professorship of chemistry at Giessen was conferred upon me in my twenty-first year.
My career in Giessen commenced in May, 1824. I always recall with pleasure the twenty-eight years which I spent there: it was as if Providence had led me to the little university. At a larger university or in a larger place my energies would have been divided and dissipated, and it would have been much more difficult, and perhaps impossible, to reach the goal at which I aimed; but at Giessen everything was concentrated in work, and in this I took passionate pleasure. The need for an institution in which the students could be instructed in the art of chemistry, by which I mean familiarity with chemical analytical operations, and skill in the use of apparatus, was then being felt; and hence it happened that, on the opening of my laboratory for teaching analytical chemistry and the methods of chemical research, students by degrees streamed to it from all sides. As the numbers increased I had the greatest difiiculty with the practical teaching itself. In order to teach a large number at one time it was necessary to have a systematic plan, or step-by-step method, which had first to be thought out and put to the proof. The manuals which several of my pupils have published later (Fresenius and Will) contain essentially, with little deviation, the course which was followed at Giessen; it is now familiar in almost every laboratory.
The production of chemical preparations was an object to which I paid very particular attention; it is very much more important than is usually believed, and one can more frequently find men who can make very good analyses than such as are in a position to produce a pure preparation in the most judicious way. The formation of a preparation is an art, and at the same time a
