Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
the nature of popular books. Popularization shifted from an activity
geared toward the diffusion of knowledge to women, children, and the
lower classes to knowledge transfer between researchers and laypersons.
9.
Mulder and Gunning
Between 1860 and 1870, not only a quantitative break in chemistry's
popularization took place, as illustrated by the numbers mentioned
above, but also, and above all, a qualitative one. Views on the use, func-
tion, and content of popularization changed drastically. Thereby a role
was played by the professionalization of chemistry and the gradual
growing apart - for many reasons - of natural scientists and the common
people, as well as by the 'educational struggle' in the Netherlands that
caused moral and religious education to be disconnected from the trans-
fer of useful knowledge.
30
The nature of the changing insights in popu-
larization can be demonstrated preeminently on the basis of the views of
two major Dutch popularizers of chemistry: Gerrit Jan Mulder (1802-
1880) and his student Jan Willem Gunning (1827-1900).
In the history of Dutch chemistry Mulder holds a prominent place,
but not just in chemistry.
31
Despite his unmistakable shortcomings, espe-
cially on a personal level, he literally and figuratively dwarfed most of
his contemporaries. There are few areas in Dutch society with which he
did not engage. Medicine and public health care, pharmacy, chemistry,
secondary and higher education, national and colonial agriculture, tax
politics and trade, technology, and local and national politics - on all
these areas he has left his mark. Also in the area of science populariza-
tion Mulder played a leading role, which, strangely, has not received the
attention from those in the history of science that it deserves.
32
In the late
1840s in the field of chemistry he stood at the heart of the then emerging
popularization movement.
30
After the controversial act of 1857, public primary schools first retained their general
Christian character, but after more private schools had been founded, public schools
grew much more neutral. In private schools religious education was obviously tied to
the school's specific denomination (
cf
. Idenburg 1960, pp. 82-119).
31
On Mulder, see Snelders 1993, pp. 93-108; Wels 1985; Van Raak 2001.
32
A recent exception is Theunissen 2000, pp. 80-97.
