Untitled - eCommons@Cornell - Cornell University

ACADEMIC DEPARTMENT. 145
experiments illustrating the principles discussed in the text-books are
performed each student.
by
Advanced courses of lectures, both with and without laboratory
practice, are given for students intending to specialize in chemistry,
but are open to all who have completed certain earlier chemical
courses. In these lectures prominence is given to the history of
chemistry and to the of study the elements on the basis of their classi
fication according to the periodic law. For the special student ample
opportunity is afforded for advanced study, and research in inorganic
chemistry.
Organic Chemistry. The general subject of organic chemistry is
.taught by a course of lectures, recitations, and laboratory work, ex
tending through one year. The theoretical basis of the study is made
as thorough as possible, while the full illustration of the lectures by
specimens, and constant laboratory practice in the preparation and
purification of typical compounds, prevent the study from becoming
an abstract exercise of memory. On the completion of the first year,
the subject of organic chemistry is continued by courses of lectures
on special chapters of the subject, and by further laboratory work in
the preparation of specimens for the museum, and in following out
reactions of particular interest, in the course of which constant refer
ence is made to papers published in the leading American, French,
and German periodicals. As soon as the necessary proficiency in
manipulation and theoretical knowledge is attained, the student is
given every encouragement to devote himself to original investiga
tion, for which organic chemistry offers a promising field.
Physical Chemistry. One group of the courses of lectures in
physical chemistry aims to present an ordered account of the experi
mental facts of this branch of physical science ; while the aim of the
other is to teach the mathematical theory of the subject. These two
groups stand to each other in about the same relation as that which
obtains between experimental physics and mathematical physics.
The topics considered in the first group, the experimental courses,
are arranged in a progressive order. One course, that on the Phase
Rule, deals with the classification of chemical equilibria, and the
application to them of the general laws known as the Gibbsian Phase
Rule and the Theorem of Le Chatelier. Another, that on the Law of
Mass Action develops the quantitative side of the subject by applica
tion of the Mass Law and the Theorem of van't Hoff. Further
courses are devoted to special topics, in particular to the important
and rapidly growing one of electro-chemistry.
The second group of courses, those on mathematical theory, are in-
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