Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
try and the other sciences continued to play a role in the activities of this
Society, they no longer had a strategic function in the new, national civi-
lization that this organization promoted with ever more zeal after the ac-
cession of King William I. Disciplines such as (Dutch) history, geogra-
phy, and languages now received much attention, at the expense of a re-
duced interest in the sciences and the arts (Mijnhardt 1988, pp. 289-94).
6.
Evening Schools and Sunday Schools
The boom of newly published chemistry topics for beginners between
1795 and 1815 went hand in hand with criticism of traditional education
in Latin schools. Various authors of popularizing works on chemistry
ardently argued for its inclusion as a subject of general education. Every
educated civilized man or woman needed to have knowledge of this field
on account of its huge social utility and the wholesome influence it
wielded on the intellectual faculties of students (Wurzer 1806, pp. vi-ix;
Parkes 1837, vol. 2, pp. 18-9; Parkes 1830, vol. 3, pp. 21-3). Yet apart
from a few exceptions very little came of the subject's introduction in
secondary education, both in the Netherlands and the rest of Europe
(Homburg 1993a, pp. 100, 113-4, 118, 128-9, 458 note 73, 464 note
157). When after 1815 the Restoration mentality gained the upper hand
throughout Europe and the classic gymnasium education became the
norm again, this killed all efforts to turn chemistry into a regular school
subject. In the Netherlands it was introduced in the curriculum nation-
wide only after Thorbecke's Secondary Education Act of 1863. In the
meantime, notably in the years before 1845, chemistry was taught exclu-
sively for utilitarian reasons. Popularizing efforts regarding women and
young people ceased for the time being. Only in combination with the
training of craftsmen and manufacturers there continued to be a niche for
popular chemistry topics in the first few decades after 1815.
Although in the eighteenth century there were evening and Sunday
courses for entrepreneurs and craftsmen (Homburg 1993a, pp. 107-12,
462 note 121), the breakthrough of this type of education occurred in
England when between 1823 and 1826 the movement associated with the
Mechanics' Institutes - under the banner of Bacon's 'knowledge is
power' - achieved unprecedented successes (Russell 1983, pp. 139-46,
