How Much Time for the General Chemistry Laboratory?

The method of teaching science in which a certain amount of opportunity is given each student for work by himself in the laboratory (the so-called individual laboratory method) is of fairly recent development. Many of the early American professors of chemistry did not believe that the beginning student should be allowed to set foot in a laboratory. This was undoubtedly due to the fact that these instructors were educated under the German system of class-room demonstration. According to Lucasse (1) the credit for the development of the first chemistry laboratory for instruction goes to Lomonossoff (1748). Later the passage of the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 caused a great development of the laboratory method, in that during the period 1880-1900 there were a great number of university laboratories constructed