Most cordially was he received by the leading members of the Council. The high merits of the petitioners were duly acknowledged. 'It is a hopeless struggle,' said the President, Herr Pfyffer, 'that struggle of yours against ignorance and superstition. There is only one means to provide for your safety: convince the masses by an examination, as thorough and as public as possible, of the excellence of your system, and your enemies will be silenced if not subdued. Then, and then only, will you be safe.'

That sage advice met with a hearty response. The petty warfare had been minutely chronicled in the public papers; it was canvassed in every nook and corner of Switzerland, and the impending battle excited the liveliest interest among all classes.

It was a beautiful day in the autumn of 1833 when the long and anxiously awaited trial took place. In countless numbers the people assembled from far and near, even from Zurich and from Bern. The cantonal Governments sent deputies. From seven o'clock in the morning until seven in the evening the most rigorous examination was held. The boys entered upon their task with so much animation and delight, they answered all the questions in so frank and so unembarrassed a manner, that all present were astonished, and in rapturous acclamations gave vent to their joyful surprise; but when the drilling exercises and the games came off, the countenances of the parents beamed with pride and delight, and the general enthusiasm knew no bounds. The battle was won, and Fröbel's victory was complete and decisive.

Enthusiastic speeches were delivered by Pfyffer, Amrhyn, and others, the members of the governing Councils. The matter was considered in an official Council, and the chateau was granted at a merely nominal rent. The Capucins, who had desecrated the pulpit by preaching sedition and violence, were ignominiously expelled from the country.

Not long after, a deputation came from the Canton of Bern, requesting Fröbel to establish a school in the orphan-house at Burgdorf, the very same place where Pestalozzi's star had risen. Fröbel proposed not to confine the plan to orphans only, and this suggestion was readily accepted. It was arranged that Middendorf should take Fröbel's place in Willisau, and be assisted by Ferdinand Fröbel, whilst Langethal, who had followed his friend to Switzerland, accompanied Fröbel to Burgdorf. Barop, considering his mission completed, returned to Keilhau. For a full year did that man leave home and wife, in obedience to the Divine call within him! Shortly after his departure a child had been born to him, whom he had not yet seen. Fröbel himself had sacrificed his family life while in Wartensee, since his wife could not be spared from Keilhau; Middendorff left his wife and his young family for four years, until the Willisau establishment was summarily suspended, when the Jesuitical party secured the reins of government! What remarkable instances of faithful devotion to the sacred cause which these men had espoused! When I now come to think of it,' Middendorff used to say, 'I hardly understand how it could have been done, yet I felt like a soldier in war at a dangerous post, I could not and dared not give way. The clergy advanced too fiercely, and with their heaviest cannon, and how could I have thought of running away on mere personal considerations ? After all his changes and meanderings he seemed to have reached, at Burgdorf, the long-hoped-for safe

port. What he had imagined his special calling—a sphere of labour like that of Pestalozzi, yet entirely shaped to his own ideas-he found here open before him. Step by step he had been patiently climbing up the steep mountain, and now that he had reached what he had considered the summit, he discovered a still higher peak, one which fascinated his whole being. Here it was that, in the summer of 1835, Fröbel and Langethal entered upon their duties. Fröbel was appointed director of the Orphan-house, and, as such, had also to superintend the studies of the teachers of the canton. These enjoyed, every third year, a three months' vacation, to repeat and continue their educational studies at Burgdorf under their now farfamed master. That was a glorious time for Fröbel and his wife. Never in all their lives did they feel happier and more at ease. Unmolested by secret or open enemies, unfettered in his labours by official meddling, unoppressed by worldly cares, Fröbel's great mind expanded and revelled in his own world of educational and philanthropical aspirations.

Here it was that he arrived at a new stage of his eventful life. In his intercourse with so many teachers he gained a deeper insight into the inner life of school and family. The latter especially he learned more emphatically to look upon as the real, the allimportant keystone of human progress. He was convinced that the family, and not the school, ought to be considered in the first place, and that the school could not prosper unless the family had properly paved the way. Mothers are the first trainers of mankind; to their pure hands are entrusted the highest interests of civilisation, and mothers must be trained for their high calling. This now became his watchword.

This was not a new idea: Napoleon had long ago expressed the same thought to Madame de Campan. Besides, there is no such thing to be found as a new principle in education. Truth may be clothed in a new garb, and may be brought home by new means, or new pathways, but truth itself is eternal.

The family, the family,' now began to occupy all his thoughts. The spiritual must be embodied in materials, in order to develop the child in conformity and in unity with God, with nature, and with mankind!' A good many such materials he had already invented and planned; but where was the beginning to be? The primary, where was it to be found? Which was naturally the first plaything? which the first joyful pastime of the child?

Like a divine inspiration the answer flashed upon him, when once his eye fell upon a party of children playing at ball. Yes, of course! Was not the globular the primary form of all life in nature? And, since all life (in nature) is one, all obeying the same laws, and since the child is part and parcel of nature, must not his development strictly obey the same laws?

The starting-point once found, it was to Fröbel an easy matter to reach his old familiar basis. The 'law of opposites' left him no doubt about it: the ball, the cube, and the intermediate link, the cylinder, these were the three original forms, the very elements of all mechanical contrivances. The subject fascinated him, he was as if in an enchanted garden; the crowning of all his life's labours and aspirations appeared to him an unmistakable reality. The child at home seized his imagination-held him spell-bound-him, that no child called father, and made him proclaim to all the

world: 'The whole is foreshadowed in the part, the general in the particular, the man is like an embryo in the child. All human development has its germs in early childhood; the life of man is the necessary outcome of his treatment as a child! Come, let us live for our children !'

Through all seeming errors and mistakes, through all his many vicissitudes, and disappointments, and trials, he had been most carefully trained for the peculiar purposes of Providence. There was, however, this warning voice of calm reasoning: Might he not be justly charged with inconsistency, when he, ever restless, again changed his sphere of action? After so many grave experiences, might not the voice of worldly wisdom have a just claim to his earnest attention, or were idealistic aspirations to have for ever an unchecked sway over him?

By a supreme decree that natural struggle, if it ever was allowed to occupy his thoughts long, was soon terminated by a dark and dismal cloud.

(To be continued.)

Chemistry of the Non-Metallics.

BY EDWARD AVELING, D.Sc. LONDON.

[This series of articles, whilst dealing with the subjects required by the University of London for the Matriculation Examination and with those required at the Elementary Stage of the Inorganic Chemistry (Branch X.) Science and Art Department, is intended as a practical guide to the philosophical and systematic study of the non-metallics.]

EXAMPLES ON BOYLE'S LAW (for Solution).

(9) Twenty cubic centimetres of gas are measured off under normal pressure. The pressure is increased 140 millimetres. What is the volume of the gas?

The general principle spoken of on page 11, can now be considered. It is found, as the result of experiment, that gram.

mm.

litres.

оссиру 99

I hydrogen at o° C, and under 760 pressure, occupies 11'2 16 oxygen 14 nitrogen Compare the numbers 1, 16, 14 with those in the list on page 12 opposite hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen. They are identical. And, generally, the number of grams of any element gas represented by the weight-number of the element occupy at normal temperature, and under normal pressure, 112 litres. This special volume, 11°2 litres, is often called I volume or a volume.

'The child is father to the man.'- Wordsworth,

Zn+H2So^=ZnSo*+ H2 65+98 =161 +2 2 vols.

Fully translated, therefore, this means that 65 parts by weight (say grams) of zinc treated with 98 parts by weight of sulphuric acid yield 161 parts by weight of zinc sulphate +2 parts by weight or 2 volumes (say twice 11'2 litres) of hydrogen.

EXERCISES ON THE PREPARATION OF HYDROGEN FROM ZINC AND SULPHURIC ACID (Solved).

(27) Required 56 litres of hydrogen. What weight of zinc must be used?

2 vols. =22'4 litres hydrogen require 65 grams zinc.

requires 65 require

22'4

22'4

65×56-1621 grams zinc.

(20) I kilogram, 3 hectograms zinc are dissolved. weight and volume of hydrogen evolved.

Find

4 decagrams: 4 hectolitres, 4 decalitres, 8 litres.

To sum up all that should be learned from this first preparation of the element hydrogen.

(a) The laboratory method of preparing it (page 81). (b) The symbols Zn + H3SO1=ZnSO4 + H2.

(c) The metric system of weights and measures (page 119). (d) The weight numbers in the reaction Zn(65) + H2SO*(98) yield ZnSO4(161)H(2).

(e) Thermometers.

(f) Barometers.

(g) Boyle's law.

(2) The law of volumes as regards elements.

(i) The volume in this reaction H2(2 vols., or 22.4 litres) are evolved when 65 grams of zinc and 98 grams of sulphuric acid are placed together under appropriate conditions.

SECOND PREPARATION. FROM WATER AND POTASSIUM OR SODIUM.

(1) Laboratory method. Prepare a pneumatic trough, beehive, and gas jars as directed on page 81. Place in the water a piece of red and a piece of blue litmus paper. These are blotting-paper stained with certain vegetable colours. Also a piece of turmeric paper, which is paper stained yellow with an extract from the turmeric root. Note that the colour of none of these three pieces of paper is changed by the water. Taking care that your fingers are dry, cut off with a dry knife a piece of the soft metal potassium. Place it within a cage made by folding together a piece of wire gauze with meshes not too fine. Hold the cage by means of a strong wire-about twelve inches long. Taking an inverted gas-jar filled with water in one hand plunge with the other the cage containing the potassium beneath the surface of the water and below the mouth of the jar. The potassium decomposes the water, taking the place of part of the hydrogen in that compound, and forming a new compound of potassium, hydrogen, and oxygen, called potassium hydrate, or potassium hydroxide, or, commonly, caustic potash. I prefer the first name, for reasons that will be better understood by and by. The hydrogen gas set free bubbles up into the gas-jar, displacing the contained water. The blue litmus paper is unchanged; the red is turned blue, and the yellow turmeric paper brown. Hydrogen oxide (or water) and potassium have yielded potassium hydrate and hydrogen. If sodium is used instead of potassium, sodium hydrate, or sodium hydroxide, or caustic soda is formed.

(2) Symbols 2H2O+2K=2KHO+H2 (good).

The student will note that the reaction might apparently be represented by exactly halving the symbols, and writing

H2O+K=KHO+H (bad).

But this would give us a symbolic representation of the evolution of one atom of hydrogen. And on the views at present held by chemists a single atom of an element gas cannot exist alone. An atom, represented by the symbol of the element written alone, without any figure, is the smallest part of an element which can exist in combination. Thus potassium hydrate consists of three atoms, one of potassium, one of hydrogen, and one of oxygen. A molecule (moles = mass, icula = diminutive ending), or little mass, is the smallest part of an element, or compound, that can exist alone. Usually, a molecule consists of two atoms. Thus H2 represents a molecule of hydrogen. In representing reactions by symbols, care must be taken never to represent a single atom of an element gas as existing alone. This only applies to gases. A solid or liquid element may be represented by its symbol without any figure. Thus in the bad equation given above K is not incorrect, and in the good equation 2K is written, but H2.

(3) Weights and volumes. A reference to the table on page 12 shows that the weight-numbers of potassium and sodium are respectively 39 and 23.

EXERCISES ON THE PREPARATION OF HYDROGEN FROM WATER AND POTASSIUM OR SODIUM (Solved). (29) Required I gram hydrogen. What weight of water will be decomposed? 2 grams H yielded by 36 grams H2O I gram 18 grams.

(30) Upon a litre of distilled water a number of small pieces of sodium are thrown, weighing in all 2 kilograms. What weight of hydrogen is evolved, and what weight of water or of metal is left at the end of the experiment ?

I litre of water = 1000 cc. = 1000 grams.

36 grams H2O need 46 grams Na and evolve 2 grams H I gram needs,, evolves, 99 99 46 x 1000 1000 grams 36

need

evolve

2 X 1000

36

1277% grams Na are required and evolved.

55%

H

2000-1277% grams Na are left.

722% grams Na, 558 grams left H evolved.

(31) As result of throwing potassium on water 23 grams hydrogen are evolved. What weight of potash is formed?