Born, March 27, 1832 Died, July 30, 1914

With the demise of Professor Francis Humphreys Storer, Professor in the Bussey Institution of Harvard University, on July 30th last, at the age of 82 years, there ended a long and useful career devoted principally to chemistry in its relation to agriculture. Frank Storer, as he was known in the early days, was born on Boylston Street, Boston, and was the son of David Humphreys Storer, M.D., LL.D., and Abby Jane (Brewer) Storer. He received his early training in private schools and under private tutors, and from 1850 to 1851 was a student at the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University. From 1851 to 1853 he served as assistant to Professor Josiah P. Cooke, then Professor of Chemistry at Harvard. In 1853 he was chemist with the U. S. North Pacific Exploring Expedition. After his return to Massachusetts, Storer resumed his studies at the Lawrence Scientific School and graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Science in 1855.

Although not reared in an agricultural community, Storer was a profound lover of nature and in his younger days, it is said, he seized every opportunity to visit the countryside. Endowed with a keen imagination, he was one of the few to realize the need of a better basis for the practice of farming on the American continent. Rule of thumb methods prevailed at the time to the extreme, and in many cases where crops were successfully grown, or where not,

the outcome was attributed to this or that cause, but hardly ever to the chemical factors operating in the soil.

Impressed with the idea of the need of placing agriculture on a plane with the other sciences, Storer went abroad in 1855 to study the European methods of applying chemistry to the study and practice of agriculture. At Tharand he is found working in the laboratory of the Royal Academy of Agriculture, studying methods under the famous Julius A. Stöckhardt. At Heidelberg he listened to the lectures of the great Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, and last, but not least, we hear of him making observations in Paris under the master Boussingault.

Not finding an appropriate opportunity for applying his newlygained knowledge-the application of chemistry to the interpretation of biological processes-Storer, on his return to the United States in 1857, while the "panic of 1857" was at its height, established himself as a consulting and analytical chemist in Boston. In 1865, however, he accepted a position as chemist with the Boston Gas Light Company, and also became Professor of General and Industrial Chemistry at the newly-created Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This was Professor Storer's first real experience as an independent teacher and here he taught chemistry, as he often remarked later, "better than ever before in America."

Prof. William B. Rogers, the Founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was strongly of opinion that the right way to teach the sciences-chemistry, physics, and biology-was the laboratory way, without rejecting entirely the lecture method, in which he was himself a master. He insisted when he started scientific instruction in the Institute of Technology, that every student should have abundant opportunity to make experiments himself in properly equipped laboratories. The first man he selected to be Professor of Chemistry in the new Institute was Storer, with whose thorough laboratory training in chemistry, and experience as a practicing chemist, Professor Rogers was familiar. Professor Rogers had also known about some chemical researches Storer and Charles W. Eliot had made together in the early '60s, especially with one published as a memoir in the series of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on "The impurities of commercial zinc." Professor Rogers knew that Eliot also believed in the laboratory method of teaching chemistry.

After the selection of Professor Storer had been made, Eliot received, at Vienna, a letter from Professor Rogers, asking Eliot to become professor of analytical chemistry in the Institute, and telling him that his friend Storer was to be the other professor of chemistry.

Storer and Eliot began, in September, 1865, to teach chemistry by the laboratory method to the first class enrolled in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in a small and poorly equipped room on the second story of a mercantile building on Summer Street, nearly opposite the store of C. F. Hovey & Co. But Rogers Hall was nearly finished; and in the course of that year President Rogers assigned the rooms in the new building to the Chemical Department, and provided the money with which to furnish and equip the laboratories. Storer and Eliot made all the detailed plans, and supervised the constructions on the principle that in all chemical subjects every student was to have desk-room and apparatus for conducting experiments several hours a week with his own eyes and hands.

Foreseeing the need of laboratory manuals, first in general chemistry, and then in qualitative analysis, Storer and Eliot soon began the preparation of these books, first the "Manual for Inorganic Chemistry," and then the "Manual for Qualitative Analysis." These books were written in a manner then novel, though now familiar -some chapters by Storer and some by Eliot. The manuscript having been put into type, the authors used the proofs in their classes for one year in the Institute laboratories, and in this process discovered and remedied some defects, and made many improvements. It is related, by one who knew of the relations existing between these pioneer teachers of chemistry, that when it came to publishing the book, a title page was demanded of them; and each author maintained that the other's name ought to stand first. Discussion led to no result; so they tossed up a cent to decide the question by chance. Storer picked up the cent, and announced that Eliot's name was to stand first. Eliot accused him of not having looked at the cent; but he would not recognize the correctness of Eliot's observation. So the book became known as Eliot and Storer's; but the authors succeeded in putting on the back of the book the names