Changes in the Teaching of Practical Chemistry During the Nineteenth Century at American Universities

This study follows the progress of the teaching of practical chemistry at Harvard from the first Professor of Chemistry, Aaron Dexter (1750–1829) to Charles William Eliot who was President of Harvard University for forty years. The story includes the contributions of John Gorham (1783–1829) and John White Webster (1793–1850) who was convicted of murder. The study focusses on the life of the next Professor of Chemistry, Josiah Parsons Cooke (1827–1894) who taught chemistry with an emphasis on practical work. This greatly influenced Charles William Eliot who with his colleague Francis Humphreys Storer (1832–1913) wrote the first practical chemistry manual. The nature of practical work had changed from an emphasis on qualitative and volumetric analysis to a wider brief of exploring inorganic chemistry mainly through the preparation of the common gases. New improved student manuals moved to include experiments in organic and physical chemistry. Later Eliot chaired the ‘Committee of Ten’ which encouraged all schools to make practical chemistry an essential part of chemistry curricula in the United States. The story is thus of the slow process of change in the teaching of chemistry over a period of nearly a century at a single institution. Demographic, cultural, and technological influences certainly all played their part in the introduction of practical work. The main demographic influence was the rapidly increasing population of America. Also important were numerous cultural and technological changes with a decreasing emphasis on the classics and a bitter civil war. Nonetheless, amid all these great changes, it is hoped to show that the life of Josiah Parsons Cooke was significant (Gamito-Marques, Isis 111:582–587, 2020, p. 583) made the following claim ‘Story telling has recently been recognised as a powerful means for improving learning about science. ‘Teaching science through individualised practical experience is today recognised as being the best way of teaching science and in improving student learning. The innovation described in this paper was to ensure that each chemistry student carried out the experiment as instructed in the practical manual and that they recorded the results of the experiment in the practical manual. The practical manuals would then be checked by the instructor. This will be the story presented in this paper. Thus, according to Gamito-Marques’s claim, telling the story of the growth of practical instruction in chemistry and making it better known should further improve the learning of chemistry.