Beginning to Teach Chemistry

The first edition of the Enclopaedia Brittanica (published between 1768 and 1771 by the Society of Gentlemen in Scotland) devoted 113 pages to 4all the principles o f chemistry\ Chemistry was defined as follows:The object and chief end of chemistry is to separate the different substances that enter into the composition of bodies; to examine each of them apart; to discover their properties and relations; to decompose those very substances, if possible; to compare them together, and combine them with others; to reunite them again into one body, so as to reproduce the original compound with all its properties; or even to produce new compounds that never existed among the works of nature, from mixtures of other substances differently combined.