Benjamin Collins Brodie to Faraday   7 July 1849

13 Albert Road | Regent’s Park | 7th July | 1849.

My dear Sir,

In compliance with your request, I send you a memorandum of some points of our late conversation with reference to the affairs of the Institution, and more especially as to the means of rendering useful and efficient the Laboratory lectures, as a course of scientific instruction¹.

In the present more advanced and exact state of Chemical Science, the means to this end are of a very different character to what they were twenty years ago. A course of scientific lectures to be truly useful, should afford the opportunity of seeing the careful and refined processes by which the latest results of chemical science have been arrived at. These, as far as possible, should be conducted in the lecture-room, and where, from the length or the delicacy of the experiments this is not practicable, it is very desirable that the chemical preparations, which are their result, should be exhibited, and a demonstration given of their general properties and reactions. If such lectures do not afford these opportunities, they lose their experimental character and much of their interest and utility. For these are precisely the advantages of the instruction of a lecture, over the instruction of a Book.

The arrangement of apparatus for these purposes, and the making of preparations, can only be done by one, who has gone through a course of chemical Instruction. In the lectures last year I greatly experienced the want of assistance for these purposes, not from any absence of care or intelligence on the part of the assistant to the Institution², but from the want of that preliminary knowledge which alone could enable him to fulfil the duties, I have mentioned. I have a private chemical assistant, who often went to the Institution to arrange and to assist at the lectures, and who under my direction made many chemical preparations for the purposes of the lecture, both last year and the year before when I assisted Mr Brande. For these lectures, however, the Institution afforded many advantages, which we should not have for a course on Organic Chemistry. Both from the greater familiarity of Anderson, with the class of experiments in the lectures, and from the nature of the preparations required. The preparations of organic chemistry cannot be bought, and require to make them, much trouble and skill. This is, of course, by no means peculiar to this class of preparations, but, I mention it, as in them the collection of the Institution is singularly deficient.

From these considerations it appears to me that a regular chemist, as assistant to the laboratory lectures is almost essential to their efficient working. And I will here answer your question as to the expences this would bring on the Institution, and the most practicable means of securing the ends I have proposed. To my own assistant I gave at first £100 and now give £110 a year. He has considerable chemical experience and is constantly in my laboratory and I think it would hardly be necessary to have as additional assistant at first, one whose services were quite so valuable. But I do not think less could reasonably be given than £80 a year with the prospect of advancement to £100. The other class of expences, attendant on Chemical Apparatus and preparations are of a more uncertain character, and would greatly depend on the quantity of work which was done. Such operations carried on for 10 months would cost more than for six. The principal expenses being the purchase of material and the breakage of glass and apparatus. A sufficient stock to start with the Institution already possesses. As however it would be essential to my superintendence of the work of such an assistant, that the greater part should be carried on in my own laboratory, which I cannot leave, and where I have the necessary means for the purpose. If the Institution were to think the plan generally desirable, it would be far better for them to find the Assistant, and enter into some arrangement with me as to the whole other expenses of the lectures, to which a certain sum might be devoted, I will say for example £50, for the current expenses of the year. In this case any further outlay I should incur on my own responsibility. The time of the assistant not occupied for the special purposes I have mentioned, I would endeavour to employ for worthy scientific ends.

As to the general question of how far it is desirable for the Institution to support this class of lectures I shall not offer an opinion. This is connected with considerations as to the purposes, for which the Institution exists, and the ends, which we may hope for it to fulfill, of which you and others who have been long engaged in its management are far better judges than I can be. In judging however of the success of such lectures, it is to be borne in mind that the Institution has not, like a College or University a certain class of its members who are, I may say, compelled to attend such lectures and the return to any outlay on their account is, by no means, to be looked for in money. The scientific labour of scientific men is like a gift from them to the world and, I think, we must not be dis-appointed if what our Institution does in this direction has also to be viewed in this light.

I am, my dear Sir, | very faithfully yours | B.C. Brodie

Professor Faraday | Royal Institution.

Endorsed by Faraday: Private to be read to Managers but not communicated to them³