Excerpt from Modern Chemistry With Its Practical Applications In preparing this book for use in secondary schools, I have endeavored to look at the science from the viewpoint of the students themselves. The fault with many texts upon the same subject is that the position of the learner has been disregarded; the books have been encyclopaaedic; they have presented a great number of facts as a skeleton or framework, but this skeleton has not been clothed with muscle and animated with life. No more fascinating subject finds a place in the curricula of our secondary schools, yet to the average student chemistry is too often but an irksome task. In the present work I have omitted much that is often given in an elementary text, while at the same time entering more into that detail which gives lively interest to the subject. It has been my aim to show, whenever possible, the practical application of the science to the everyday affairs of life; in other words, to emphasize industrial and commercial chemistry. At the same time the fundamental principles of the science have not been forgotten; on the contrary, they have been emphasized even more than is usual in an elementary chemistry. This has been rendered possible by the omission of much that can never be either of interest or of value to the beginner. Recognizing the fact that science must be taught inductively by experiment, some authors have assumed that the student must gain all his knowledge of chemistry in this way. No greater mistake could be made. The science has been hundreds of years in reaching its present development, and much must be accepted by the student without any effort to work it out for himself. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."