Laboratory work

“ The student should be made to feel that the laboratory is the place where careful, purposeful experimentation is to be done, that this is the main object of the laboratory work, and that the notebook is merely a reliable record of what has been accomplished. ”

“ Every instrument of precision used in the laboratory should be a standard of its kind, the best which could be made; otherwise the work of the institution might fall short of the high character intended for it. So also with the chemicals: only the best should be tolerated. ”

“ But the biological laboratory, as it is now understood, may be said to date from about 1870, when Huxley, with the cooperation of Professors Foster, Rutherford, Lankester, Martin, and others (T.J. Parker, G.B. Howes, and the present Sir W. Thiselton Dyer, K.C.M.G., C.I.E.,) , held short summer classes for science teachers at South Kensington, the daily work consisting of an hour's lecture followed by four hours' laboratory work, in which the students verified for themselves facts which they had hitherto heard about and taught to their unfortunate pupils from books alone. ”

“ Finally the problems were unscrambled and the laboratory began to run smoothly again. The research projects were reestablished and the work started out anew. Frayed tempers were soothed and the scientists finally got around to trusting each others' results again. The Laboratorians were now carefully but tactfully watched by the junior chemists who, in turn, were spending more time in the laboratories and less in their offices. ”

“ Besides a study of the chemistry of the elements and their compounds, the course includes a brief survey of certain of the more important industrial processes, such as the manufacture of the elementary gases, the acids, soda, glass, cement, and metals. The laboratory work is chosen so as to illustrate the current lectures. In order to emphasize the quantitative nature of the science, the student is required to solve a large number of numerical problems based on chemical processes and to do a certain amount of actual quantitative work in the laboratory. ”

“ We can easily imagine a scientist whose contributions to the work of the laboratory are of the highest order, who holds chairs and possesses civil dignities and honors of every sort, amiably consenting to show a lady a cellular tissue under the microscope. ”

“ Hence, it comes about that the editor sends men to work with the microscope, in the chemical laboratory, in the pharmaceutical laboratory, in the physiological laboratory, in the anatomical room, in the hospital, in the dispensary, in the tomes of medical literature of every language and of every age. In short, he has these men at work in every field congenial to them, and such that they can reach it. ”

“ Experiments [292] of this class—those in which measurement of some kind is involved—are the proper work of a physical laboratory. In every experiment we have first to make our senses familiar with the phenomenon; but we must not stop here—we must find out which of its features are capable of measurement, and what measurements are required in order to make a complete specification of the phenomenon. We must then make these measurements, and deduce from them the result which we require to find. ”

“ There is much to be said for the position taken by the "older teachers," who may not possess the scholarship of the "younger investigators" but who argue for a general course in which laboratory work shall be reduced, technique minimized, and attention focused on giving an extensive view of chemical forces. ”

“ If we had in America a laboratory exclusively devoted to research, suitably manned and equipped, our country might carry off the glory of achieving this grand work. In default of such a laboratory, however, the labor might be accomplished through the cooperation of many individual workers, each one doing his small part, not aimlessly, but in unison with the others. One chemist might undertake to furnish certain of the elements in a perfectly pure condition ”

“ Before performing an experiment, the student is advised to review those topics presented in the text which have a bearing upon the experiment, so that a clear conception may be gained of the relationship between the laboratory work and that of the class room. The student should endeavor to cultivate the power of observation and to grasp the principle involved in the work, rather than do it in a merely mechanical and perfunctory way. ”

“ The physics teacher, enthusiastic over his students and his work, builds machines and testing devices, which the boys and girls use in solving the problems which they bring from their homes. No less close to the life of the place is the chemical laboratory, which offers opportunity for the analysis of soil, the chemistry of fertilizers, experiments in testing food and milk, and a number of other matters pertaining to agriculture and domestic life. ”

“ The biological station came to put all that right. It presented a happy union of the observational work of the field-naturalist with the minute investigations of the laboratory student. It brought the laboratory to the seashore, and the sea, in the form of well-equipped healthy tanks, within the walls of the laboratory. It enabled the living organisms to be studied almost in their native haunts by the most refined laboratory methods. ”

“ A chemical laboratory, a physical laboratory, scales, standards of measure, specific gravities, thermal, barometrical, electrical units, more minute calculations, would represent the variety necessary, covering the scientific parts more minutely, but by no means dispensing with actual shop practice and thorough work in it. ”

“ There I lecture to a class of students daily for about four and a half months, and my class have, of course, their text-books; but the essential part of the whole teaching, and that which I regard as really the most important part of it, is a laboratory for practical work, which is simply a room with all the materials arranged for ordinary dissection. We have tables properly arranged in regard to light, microscopes, and dissecting-instruments, and we work through the structure of a certain number of animals and plants. ”

“ In conclusion, let me say a word to those of you here present who are to be the first workers with me in this laboratory. It behooves you as well as me to recognize what a heavy responsibility lies upon us. Upon the work that we do and the spirit in which we do it, upon the character we give our laboratory at its start, much of its future success or failure depends. If we all work honestly and thoroughly, it will win esteem and reputation; if we are careless and half-hearted, it will become of low repute. ”

“ A modern laboratory designed for students in one of the sciences, with its convenient desks, drawers, and lockers, its rows of bottles containing reagents, its apparatus especially devised for the work to be done, its arrangements for water, gas, and steam, its compartments set off to secure special conditions of light, air, or temperature, and its collections systematically arranged for the comparison of specimens, is a most satisfactory place to work in To say that the modern library is approaching this character is the highest praise that we can give it. ”

“ The laboratory will undertake the training of observers for the various national organizations, the testing of instruments, the supply of standard sea-water for controlling salinity determinations, and also gas-analysis. It will also carry out experiments with improved apparatus and methods in order to ensure a degree of accuracy never before aimed at in work at sea. ”

“ The systematic instruction of students in methods of experimenting by practical exercises with apparatus was a much later idea, and this fact must be 7taken account of when the laboratories of the present time are contrasted with the much more meagre provision of those early days. The laboratory is now, as much as the lecture-room, the place where classes are held and instruction given in experimental science to crowds of students, and it is a change for the better. ”

“ The study is now complete and definite, since, if necessary, we may return to the laboratory, where, rich in the suggestions which have arisen from our new survey, fortified by a first approximation, we can arrive at a greater precision, thanks to a new synthesis established by new experiments. We work from the known to the unknown and from the simple to the complex, retracing our steps if necessary. ”

“ In 1875 the writer organized a "mechanical laboratory," with the purpose of attaining several very important objects: the prosecution of scientific research in the various departments of engineering work; the creation of an organization that should give students an opportunity to learn the methods of research most usefully employed in such investigations; the assistance of members of the profession, and business organizations in the attempt to solve such questions, involving scientific research, as are continually arising in the course of business ”

“ By carrying out practical field experiments, in combination with scientific work in the laboratory, he was able to put to the test matters of agricultural practice and to study their scientific import. ”

“ Professor of Experimental Medicine and Director of the H. K. Cushing Laboratory of Experimental Medicine of Western Reserve University. by the establishment of a laboratory and chair of experimental medicine, the occupant of which and his assistants shall be expected to keep themselves in touch, so far as is possible, with clinical work, on the one hand, and physiology and pathology, on the other, and to encourage and direct investigation having a bearing upon both. The new foundation is intended to form a link between the knowledge of the laboratory and the knowledge of the hospital. ”

“ Enough has been said to show distinctly the main points in favor of a laboratory specially endowed for research, and some of the chief considerations which must arise in its establishment. Such a laboratory as is here indicated, a laboratory in which many specialists could combine forces in the more difficult fundamental investigations of physical science, surely ought not to remain long a mere fabric of the imagination, a misty dream of the future. It should be founded—whether by an individual or by the nation it matters little. ”

“ There is, indeed, little to see that would greatly interest the casual inspector, for in its outward aspects one laboratory is much like another, a seeming hodgepodge of water-tanks, glass jars of specimens, and tables for microscopes. ”

“ So I had spent two years in a school of chemistry, attending lectures, and performing analyses, qualitative and quantitative, and various other chemical experiments, which I used to think very droll and amusing, in order to fit myself for my future career—and at length, thanks to my father’s kindness, I found myself master of a laboratory which had been arranged in a manner regardless of expense, with water and gas laid on in every possible corner, and bottles, chemical stoves, and scales, &c., of a most ornamental brightness and perfection. ”

“ A station for experimental biology must have not only the proper equipment for breeding and rearing organisms under natural conditions, but also for artificially changing and controlling the external factors of the environment. The physico-chemical laboratory (Fig. 10) provides the substances used as variable external factors and also to determine the physico-chemical properties of the biologically important colloids. ”

“ I found it impossible to secure the necessary privacy here, and, before opening my experiments, I selected a site for a new laboratory in an unfrequented spot among the mountains this side of Lake Tahoe. You will be the first man, with the exception of my two devoted assistants, to see my apparatus, and you shall share the sensation of the critical experiment. ”

“ They've rigged up a regular laboratory—taken over one of the rec halls—and they dabble in experiments of one kind or another. Useless, of course, with the limited equipment they have, but it seems to keep some of them happy. ”

“ Now, my good friend, your living body, and my own, are laboratories, in which changes of precisely the same kind are constantly brought about; your living body, and my own, are made of an enormous quantity of separate chambers and vessels, very small, it is true, but nevertheless such as can be seen quite distinctly when they are looked for with the microscope. In these small chambers and vessels different kinds of substances are thrown together, exactly as the zinc, and acid, and blue vitriol are in the laboratory-chambers of the electric telegraph. ”

“ This is through real contact with animals, plants, rocks, chemical compounds and physical instruments, and a well-conducted scientific laboratory has the same value as out-of-doors experience, with the great addition that it can be made systematic and therefore effective for power. ”

“ Still I value highly this opportunity which has been given me of making known to this audience the aims and purpose of the National Laboratory.
The idea of a physical laboratory in which problems bearing at once on science and industry might be solved is comparatively new. ”

“ Regarding the laboratory it said: ‘In the laboratory, which is under the direction of the Professor of Chemistry, and which is open to any scientific persons who may propose important chemical investigations, series of experiments are continually carried on. Minerals and substances likely to be useful in agriculture, arts, and manufactures are analysed and researches tending to the progress of useful discovery prosecuted. Of the results of these many have been already published, particularly researches upon tanning ”