The next letter, so far as regards the Victoria University, requires some explanation. The then Chairman of the Council of the Yorkshire College, the late Dr. Heaton, was not wholly friendly to the idea of a new northern university, and ultimately he dissociated himself from his colleagues on this particular question. He was never able to persuade himself that another university was actually needed or was desirable. In his judgment the interests of higher education, so far at least as the creation of degree-granting bodies could serve them, were sufficiently assured in England by the existence of the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and London. He viewed with considerable apprehension the attempt to establish rival universities: he imagined that the stress of competition for students might lower the standard of scholarship. Above all he was strongly opposed, in what he thought the true interests of the medical profession, to the increase in the number of possible avenues to practice: in his opinion there were already too many for an efficient standard of qualification to be maintained. It was perhaps characteristic of him to suppose that the immediate, and indeed the ultimate, effect of the establishment of the university in Manchester would be not to hearten and rouse his colleagues to fresh exertions in order to make the Leeds College worthy to be received as a member of the University: on the contrary, he thought that, by force of circumstances, the enthusiasm of the friends of that institution would be gradually damped, and their energy proportionally weakened, as the neighbouring College grew in power and prestige after being raised to the dignity of a university. He was specially concerned about the future of the Leeds Medical School, of which he had been a member for many years. It was well established and had an excellent record, but its position would, he considered, be undermined and its continued existence jeopardized by the proximity of a school attached to a degree-giving body. He was not able to carry his colleagues on the Council of the Yorkshire College with him in his view of the probable influence of the new University on its fortunes. As the sequel proved, he entirely misconceived its effect: so far from weakening the energies of its friends, events showed that it acted as the most powerful stimulus the Leeds College ever received. But Dr. Heaton’s authority and influence with respect to the Medical School enabled him to carry his point in regard to the proposed medical degrees, and the Yorkshire representatives were instructed to disavow any wish that power should be sought to grant them. A suggestion to send a private message to the Lord President to this effect was made after it had been represented by the legal agents that no observations on the draft chapter could be received by the Privy Council. Under the circumstances the authorities of Owens College were not without justification for their disappointment and annoyance.

The private message above referred to was not sent. At the same time Dr. Heaton’s views, backed up as they were by the action of the College of Surgeons and British Medical Association, and a great number of the leading hospital surgeons and teachers in London and elsewhere, prevailed, and the application for power to grant degrees in medicine and surgery was, for the time at least, withdrawn, in the expectation that legislative action on the general question of medical education and qualification was contemplated. As no such action was taken, a supplementary charter removing the restriction was granted on April 20, 1883.

The next letter, under date February 14, 1880, shows a further stage in the progress of the application. By a then recent Act it had to be laid before both Houses of Parliament for thirty days before any report on the subject could be submitted to the Sovereign.

The Charter was granted by the Queen in Council on April 6th, and was finally ratified on April 20, 1880.

The next letter (March 30, 1880) shows that this event was to be celebrated, as a matter of course, in the customary British method.

The following letter (January 16, 1881) shows how cordial the relations between the sister Colleges had now become, thanks to the frank and friendly discussion between their representatives, and how loyally those in authority at Owens were prepared to carry out the compact:

Roscoe, in fact, from the very beginning of its career had always shown a sympathetic interest in the fortunes of the Yorkshire College. Badly housed and poorly endowed at its start, its early struggles and difficulties were watched by him with a kindly regard, based, no doubt, to some extent on the memory of his own experiences. He was not unfrequently in Leeds in those days, and his breezy optimism and cheerful confidence that things would come right, in spite of checks and disappointments, were at once stimulating and encouraging to the small band of young professors who were striving to mould the institution according to the pattern of that which he had himself done so much to fashion. An indication of that interest was manifested by his presence, in December 1880, at the formal opening of the new buildings which the College owes to the wise liberality of the Clothworkers’ Company. At the banquet which followed he responded to the toast of “The Victoria University,” and expressed, on behalf of the authorities of Owens College, the hope that before long the Yorkshire College would become one of the incorporated Colleges, and would help the Owens College to uphold the dignity and usefulness of the new University.

Roscoe took a leading part in shaping the curriculum of the new University, and at the meeting of the Court which settled its general lines he might be said to have been the mouthpiece of the party which succeeded in impressing upon it its characteristic features. What had to be considered were the needs of great industrial communities. What sort of knowledge do they desire, and what should they be encouraged to pursue? The discussion mainly turned upon the place which the classical languages should hold in the university courses. “Compulsory” Greek was no longer regarded as a practical question. Should “compulsory” Latin also be eliminated? Are these ancient languages, or either of them, still to be regarded as an indispensable part of a liberal education and an indispensable requisite for a degree? The claims of the Classics were not without defenders, but as a local newspaper pointed out in a leading article, curiously enough it would seem that among the stoutest of these were to be found some of the very men who might have been supposed to be the natural champions of the newer learning, and if orthodox academic traditions received a rude blow, it was because they were deserted by the very men who had been nursed in them. With two exceptions, the professorial members of the Court were unanimous in recommending that Latin should not be made obligatory for a degree. The Chancellor and Lord Derby supported the contention that whatever may be the value as mental food and training of the Classics when thoroughly mastered, the wretched minimum of ill-learnt Latin and soon-forgotten Greek prescribed in university examinations as preliminary to more serious studies possesses no educational value whatever. Perhaps the argument most decisive with the Court was that given by Roscoe. He said they had to consider the large number of persons who came to the Owens College for special instruction, and more particularly for engineering and mathematics, but who had never been at any school where Latin was taught. Those were the men who carried off the best engineering prizes, and for them it was that this door had wisely been kept open. They must not be guided by what Oxford or Cambridge had done, but by what was good for their own district and what was advisable at the present moment. Let them remember what a number of men such as he had mentioned there were in their neighbourhood, and how flourishing were the mathematical schools, and then let them say whether they could cut off those schools and men from university education. The “innovators” won the day by a majority of 2 to 1, and thus effected “the dethronement, never to rise again, of this mischievous idol.”

It was amusing to notice the perturbation which this departure from a time-honoured tradition caused in certain scholastic circles and among the self-styled “friends of culture.” But on the whole the action was favourably commented upon by the more influential newspapers and leading educational journals. It was regarded as the inevitable consequence of modern necessity, and of the gradual recognition that the traditions of mediæval schoolmen were not sacrosanct or necessarily the best adapted to new requirements.

In drafting the Constitution of the new University power was of course taken in accordance with established procedure, and in deference to the democratic tendencies of British seats of learning, to form the body known as Convocation, and those of the former students of Owens College who came within certain definitions were made its first members.

It would seem to be the inevitable tendency of all Convocations to play the part of a Parliamentary Opposition. Their primary duty, as they conceive it, is to criticize and to take an independent view of the policy of the university, as determined by the governing or executive powers. No doubt such criticism is salutary if wisely directed, but experience has shown that it is sometimes factious and occasionally obstructive. Much, therefore, depends upon the chairman. It was felt by many of the members that it was specially important at the outset to make a prudent selection if Convocation was to secure from the beginning its proper influence and dignity as a deliberative assembly. The Extreme Left—there is always such a group in such a gathering—had promptly proposed Dr. Richard Marsden Pankhurst, a student of the College in the Quay Street days, and now mainly remembered as the husband and father of certain ladies who have distinguished themselves in the cause of Woman Suffrage. Dr. Pankhurst was never regarded quite seriously in College circles—least of all by his former associates, who on a dull evening at the Union would occasionally put him up to make a political harangue in the style of the Convention, when he would declaim the most blood-curdling sentiments in a highly pitched falsetto, with all the fiery eloquence and fervid passion of a Danton or a Hebert. But however powerful the appeals to a youthful enthusiasm, the stones of Quay Street remained unmoved, nor was Deansgate at any time blocked with barricades.

Later on Dr. Pankhurst went to the Bar, when he followed in the footsteps and sought to better the example of a once well-known Chartist orator whose name is well-nigh forgotten, became an active local politician, and made one or two futile attempts to gain a parliamentary seat as the most extreme of advanced Radicals. It was possible, of course, that when weighted with the responsibilities of office Dr. Pankhurst’s conduct of the chair might have been irreproachable. But the majority of Convocation were not disposed to take the risk. Accordingly an “influentially signed” memorial was issued suggesting Roscoe as first chairman. The advantage of securing at this early period a chairman well acquainted with the work of the other co-ordinate bodies of the University was obvious. But there was another reason, as the terms of the memorial indicated. The general body of the members were anxious to testify their appreciation of the services of the man who had been so largely instrumental in making a Convocation at all possible.

The suggestion that he should be the first chairman was made without Roscoe’s knowledge, but it was so well received that he consented to be nominated and was elected by a large majority. The Intransigeants, of course, affirmed that they were fighting solely for a principle, and “as a protest that those who teach and train ought not to govern and examine and fill all the positions in the University.” They next proceeded to move “a kind of vote of censure on the Executive Council for anticipating the jurisdiction of Convocation in arranging for degrees, examinations, and so forth.” This was met by “the previous question” and lost, whereupon the meeting proceeded to discuss the absorbingly interesting subject of academic costume, and the dissident minority melted away.

At this first meeting the clerk informed Convocation that at the next ordinary meeting of the Court the Council proposed to report as to the University making use of its power to grant degrees to persons being at the date of the University Charter associates of the Owens College. The first graduation ceremony of the University took place in the autumn of 1882, when Professor Ward in presenting the Associates said:

The following letters from Roscoe to the writer have reference to this function, which took place in the Manchester Town Hall—with, as the descriptive reporter stated, “all the ceremony and pageantry that help to cast a glamour over the older seats of learning.”

Unfortunately, the recipient of these letters (and of the degree) was unable to be present. He had just succeeded by effluxion of time to a position formerly held by Roscoe himself in “that great examining University” which had in the past so efficiently tested the educational progress of Owens College, and his official duties kept him in London.

The time, perhaps, has not yet arrived to attempt to assess the effect on the higher education of the country which has followed from the establishment of these modern universities, but that it has already been very great there can be no question. Since they are free, for the most part, from the influence of the schoolmen, and are unhampered by mediæval traditions and the prepossessions of the past, they are the more readily able to shape their course in accordance with the demands of industrial progress and the necessities of modern life. From the circumstance that they are nearly all situated in large towns and in the midst of industrial communities, the study of science is, as a rule, a prominent feature in their scheme of instruction, and accordingly their science faculties are usually strongly developed. A spirit of emulation makes them all active centres of research, especially in physical science and in its technical applications, and their aggregate output of original scientific inquiry is now very considerable, and in extent and quality compares most favourably with that of continental nations. Their influence upon the conduct of those industries which ultimately depend upon science is already very marked, and as the number of scientifically trained men becomes larger, as the result of their instruction, that influence is bound to become still greater. With the diffusion of a knowledge of scientific principles new applications of science to practice will follow, and these in their turn will react upon the instruction in the schools of science. The ultimate effect of all this will be a still clearer recognition by the community that the permanence and eventual success of our manufacturing industries depends upon the intelligent application of science.

We are thus able to perceive how Roscoe’s action in helping on the development of Owens College on modern lines and in raising it eventually to the status of a university has reacted, and is bound still further to react, upon the intellectual and material welfare of this country. It was the great success of the Manchester College as a centre for the diffusion of knowledge in its own district that incited other towns to seek to emulate its example, and when Owens College sought for the position as a university to which she was entitled, the same spirit of emulation quickened the efforts of her friendly rivals to make themselves not less worthy of such a dignity.

Of course it is not claimed for Roscoe that he actually initiated this remarkable movement—a movement which must be regarded as one of the most significant features of our times; he shares the credit with others. But he certainly was one of the mainsprings of it. It may be said the time was ripe for the step. Nevertheless, it is due to him to affirm that he was one of the earliest to perceive that fact, and to take occasion boldly by the hand. If he cannot justly be said to have actually started the action, he was at least one of its most powerful prime movers.

CHAPTER VI
ROSCOE AS A TEACHER

Some years before Owens College attained to the position of a university, several attempts were made to induce Roscoe to sever his connection with it. In 1870 he was offered the lectureship on Chemistry at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in succession to Dr. Matthiessen.

The following letter under date October 14, 1870, refers to this circumstance:

Two years later he was invited to become a candidate for the vacant chair of Chemistry at Oxford, with the promise of a fellowship if elected. That he might be Brodie’s successor was, he says, a tempting suggestion, but on consideration he felt he had a wider scope, and the possibility of greater usefulness in building up the chemical school of Owens College—a decision which he had the satisfaction of knowing met with the warm approval of Huxley and other friends.

Roscoe’s method of working his department was wholly modelled on that of Bunsen, as those of his pupils who subsequently repaired to Heidelberg could testify. A bove majori discit arare minor. He gave his lectures at the beginning of the working day, after which, and whilst the laboratory men were settling to work, he would retire to his sitting-room to glance at his correspondence. He would then go round to each in turn, see what had been done since the previous visit, and give such directions and advice as were necessary. Although the students worked independently, and were at different stages of progress, he knew precisely how each was occupied. With the men engaged on research work, or with preparations, or on any matter out of the usual routine, he would frequently spend a considerable amount of time. He always seemed to be as much interested in the work as the workers themselves, and was unaffectedly pleased with a good analytical result, a well-constructed apparatus, or a neat preparation. His boyish love of manipulation, simply as such, remained with him to the end, and he somehow managed to convey something of his own feeling of delight in handling apparatus to those he taught. In this lay the secret of his power and success as the director of a laboratory. Although his students never forgot that he was the professor—he was always “Doctor” Roscoe to them—they realized that he was quite on an approachable plane, and a bond of sympathy and of mutual understanding was quickly established which strengthened into friendship and esteem.

As a teacher, tolerant of the imperfection of human nature in youth, he might pardon stupidity or condone carelessness, but he had no patience with anything that savoured of pretension or deceit. Nothing angered him more than to find that an analytical result had been “trimmed” or “cooked.” He once summarily expelled a young man from his laboratory who, under pretence of making a re-determination of an atomic weight, was caught hatching out a series of wholly fictitious numbers. And he was amazed at the mentality of a minister of religion who failed to perceive the heinousness of such a crime, the fact being the good easy man thought the procedure was on a par with any other mathematical exercise, and therefore liable to error. That young man, it may be added, in after years came to a violent end, for he was lynched for horse-stealing; the descent to Avernus, as Roscoe would point out, is easy and inevitable to one of the moral obliquity that can juggle with the sanctity of experimental figures.

The ingenuous youth of Owens in the writer’s time were not a particularly lamb-like lot, and occasional émeutes were not unknown, but disturbances in Roscoe’s class-room were absolutely unheard of. Indeed, such was his personal ascendancy that at times his assistance was invoked to quell an uproar in a neighbouring territory. As he stepped into the room and began, “Now, boys, etc.,” he would be received with a round of cheers, and order would once more reign in Warsaw. A word of expostulation from him would suffice to ensure it.

Of course, as the number of his pupils increased, and the laboratories became larger and more numerous, it became impossible to give so great a share of individual attention, and much had to be delegated to demonstrators, for the most part chosen from among senior students who were preparing for an academic career, and who had themselves been trained by him. At the same time he was quite alive to the value of “new blood,” and any promising young man who had shown aptitude for teaching or ability in research was sympathetically considered on the occasion of a vacancy.

He next visited his private laboratory to consult with his assistants, and to learn how their work was progressing. As his engagements multiplied, and the calls upon his time increased, he gradually ceased to take any active part in the operations when assured of the competence of those to whom he had entrusted the execution of his plan of research. Indeed, he allowed his chosen helpers considerable latitude, if, as usually happened, they were genuinely interested in their work. He had a strong belief in the wisdom of giving the ’prentice hand “his head,” as the surest way of strengthening any latent faculty for original inquiry he might possess. He had himself been trained in this way, and he employed the same methods in turn.

Roscoe, like Bunsen, set no very great value on lecture-room teaching, although he recognized that with the majority of students no other system is practicable. It no doubt serves to afford an aperçu of the subject, which is what the average attendant at lectures presumably wants. At the same time he spared no pains to make his lectures interesting, and they were always admirably illustrated by experiments. Luckily he had in his famulus Heywood, a remarkably able lecture-assistant, a skilful glass-blower, and a good mechanician, with a talent for devising striking and original illustrations. Roscoe had a good voice, clear enunciation, and a pleasant, easy mode of delivery, but he had none of the arts of the orator—nothing of the fiery, impulsive manner of his contemporary, Hofmann, or the command of polished speech that characterized Kekulé. In the lecture-room his language was simple and direct; he was an excellent expositor, always lucid, occasionally humorous, and never dull.

Although organic chemistry at his most active period as an investigator was experiencing an extraordinary development, and offering limitless opportunities of discovery, its problems then, and, it may be added, at no subsequent time, had more than an academic interest for him. The only communication dealing with organic chemistry with which his name is associated is a short note on the Spontaneous Polymerisation of Volatile Hydrocarbons contributed to the Chemical Society in 1885.[4]

The paper had its origin in a chance observation brought to his notice by a tar-distiller, who had noticed the formation, on standing, of a white crystalline mass among the volatile hydrocarbons resulting from the decomposition of phenolic substances at a red heat. The crystalline substance was found to have a molecular formula C₁₀H₁₂, but its real nature and the mode of its genesis were not established.

Organic chemistry was hardly taught at Heidelberg in Roscoe’s time, and then only by subordinate professors and privat-docenten, mainly to pharmacists. The effect of this training was seen in the subsequent character of his teaching. The lectures on organic chemistry that he was necessarily required to give at Owens College, with their limited possibilities of experimental illustration, simply bored him. Happily he found in Schorlemmer a colleague who was glad to relieve him of the duty. Schorlemmer was not a fluent speaker, and although he wrote our language with ease and accuracy, he never acquired familiarity with the mysteries of its pronunciation. But he was an excellent teacher, remarkably well-read, and had an astonishingly retentive memory, and his lectures were thoroughly appreciated by the discerning student.

Roscoe continued to direct the Chemical Department of Owens College until his election as Member of Parliament for the Southern Division of Manchester in the autumn of 1885, when he resigned the Professorship of Chemistry. On his retirement the Council recorded its strong sense of the eminent services he had rendered to the College through a period of thirty years, and its conviction that to his great attainments as a man of science, his skill and success as a teacher and organizer, his widespread reputation, and his high personal qualities, it was in great measure due both that the College enjoyed so high a rank as a place of education, and that its Chemistry Department in particular had long held a position second to that of no other academic institution in the United Kingdom.

Similar testimony was borne by his colleagues when placing his portrait by Burgess in their Common Room, and by his pupils when offering another portrait by Herkomer to Lady Roscoe. The address accompanying this latter gift, and signed by upwards of two hundred old pupils, was as follows:

In a short account which Roscoe compiled for private circulation, he recorded, with pardonable pride, the rise and progress of the Chemical Department of the Owens College during the thirty years he directed it; and he indicated the leading principles which had guided him in its development. He recalled the position of the College in 1857, when the workers in the chemical laboratory were fifteen in number. It was only very slowly realized that Science could be made an efficient instrument of education, and that such an education was not only compatible with, but was absolutely necessary for, a successful manufacturing and industrial career. The fact that the stipend of the Professor of Chemistry was fixed at one-half of that given to the other chairs showed how the Governing Body at that time regarded the relative importance of that subject, as compared with classics and mathematics.

From the outset he was firmly convinced that the great blot in English industrial life was a singular want of appreciation of one of the essential conditions of success, namely, a sound training in the scientific principles which underlie all practice. The fact that the intimate connection which ought to exist between science and practice was more clearly recognized by our continental rivals, was bound in the long run to tell against our own manufacturing industries. He then shows how he had sought to establish a sound and thorough course of systematic theoretical and practical instruction in chemistry to meet the gradual recognition of this fact which he was certain would arise under the stress of necessity. But, as he points out, the success of any such scheme must ultimately depend upon its director.

On this firm foundation of a competent theoretical knowledge of inorganic and organic chemistry, and of a thorough practical acquaintance with analysis, can alone the proper and higher education of the chemist, whether for purely scientific or for technical purposes, be based. It was upon this view Roscoe consistently acted. He steadily set his face against any practising of rough-and-ready works-methods until the student had learnt to appreciate the exacter processes. It is only when he has gained the capacity for judging as to the particular applicability of a method that he should be permitted to compromise between efficiency and speed. When confidence is based upon knowledge and practice, the special circumstances of his position and his sense of responsibility, when engaged in technical work, will enable him to determine rightly when such compromise is justifiable.

As regards instruction in applied chemistry, Roscoe always held that the application can only be properly learnt in the factory or works, just as a trade cannot be taught in a school—unless, indeed, the school becomes a shop. But there is no reason why the scientific principles and details of the various industrial processes should not be brought to the knowledge of the pupil who is intended afterwards to conduct such processes. Provided a sound scientific basis is secured, such instruction, given by a teacher who has had practical as well as theoretical experience, is of great value to the technical student.

Thanks mainly to Roscoe’s example, these principles are nowadays among the commonplaces of chemical instruction, and are adopted substantially by all teachers of experience. That they commended themselves to lay minds capable of appreciating and judging them, and that the practical results of working the Owens College Chemical Department by means of them proved satisfactory, was proved by the steady increase in the number of Roscoe’s pupils, session after session, and by the variety of responsible and important positions many of these pupils subsequently filled. Another significant feature was the increasing public recognition of the meaning and value of a sound chemical education as shown by the growing willingness of parents and of young men themselves to devote such an amount of time to their studies as would enable them to obtain real benefit. He found in the earlier years of his experience that the prevailing notion of the majority of manufacturers (though there were notable exceptions) was that if the son stayed at College for six months he could be “put up” to all the necessary information to enable him to apply chemistry to his business.

When he laid down his office he could point to the fact that his laboratories, spacious as they were thought to have been when first erected, had been more than full during the previous half-dozen years. It was calculated that upwards of two thousand men had passed through his courses. Among them were many teachers, technologists, and professional chemists occupying responsible and important positions. In the list of the Dalton Chemical Scholars, and of the Berkeley Fellows, were to be found names known in the literature of science for their scientific investigations. Indeed, no similar place in the kingdom could show such a record of contributions to chemical knowledge. Under Roscoe’s government the Owens College Chemical Laboratory furnished, from first to last, two hundred and thirty-five original communications, mainly to the Journal of the Chemical Society, or the Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal Society.

The laboratories which Roscoe designed, and which are known under his name, have long since proved inadequate to accommodate the numbers which now flock to the Manchester School of Chemistry. After Schorlemmer’s death it was found necessary to add to their number, and the new Schorlemmer laboratories, of eighty-nine working benches, were built for the special study of organic chemistry. These were in their turn overcrowded, when Mr. Andrew Carnegie, the well-known American multi-millionaire, who never forgets he was born on British soil, presented the University with £10,000 to erect buildings, on condition that they should be called the John Morley Laboratories, in honour of his friend Viscount Morley of Blackburn, the eminent historian and statesman, and now Chancellor of the Victoria University.

On October 4, 1909, Roscoe was requested to open formally the new laboratories, when he remarked: “It was very gratifying to know that Mr. Carnegie, who has spent millions of money on founding public libraries all over the English-speaking countries, seemed to be turning his attention to the foundation of laboratories which, in my opinion, was of still greater consequence.” A characteristic remark which those who knew the speaker would be quite prepared to hear.

CHAPTER VII
ROSCOE AS AN INVESTIGATOR

The character of Roscoe’s scientific work may also be said to have been entirely moulded by his Heidelberg training, and Bunsen’s influence may be traced through it to the last. So completely was this the case that consciously or unconsciously he seemed never to contemplate attacking any problem that would not have appealed to, or have been appreciated by, Bunsen.

His first research was undoubtedly suggested by Bunsen. As already stated, it resulted in the classical investigation on the laws regulating photochemical action. It was already known that a mixture of equal volumes of hydrogen and chlorine on exposure to light lost its characteristic colour, and was converted into hydrochloric acid, readily soluble in water; and Bunsen conceived the idea of making this reaction the basis of a method of measuring the relative amount and activity of those light-vibrations which are mainly concerned in effecting chemical change. As a matter of fact the idea was not new, for, unknown to Bunsen, it had already been adopted by Draper, of New York, who had, as he states in his paper in the Philosophical Magazine for December 1843: