John Griscom, Chemist, 1774-1852 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS93 Anthony were among those who frequently visited this high-minded Quaker family. At the age of fifteen Elizabeth made, with her brother, her first visit to Boston. They stopped with the Garrisons and met and heard most of the distinguished Bostoniane of that distinguished time. A visit to the Emersone began the friendship with them and their daughter which lasted throughout their lives. She heard the story of a washerwoman in Concord who was leaving her work early one day to hear Emerson lecture. " When asked if she understood him she answered, ' Not a word but I like to go and see him stand up there and look as if he thought everyone was as good as he was.' " While in Boston, Elizabeth saw something of Dr. Dio Lewis' method of physical culture. Dr. Lewis was the pioneer in this field. Some time afterward she decided to take the normal course in this work. In 1866 she accepted the position of professor of physical training at Vassar College which opened that year. The narrative of her life there holds much of interest for any reader, but must be delightfully reminiscent for early Vassar Alumnae. The uniform required for the gymnasium shows how far the emancipation (epancimation, as I in my youth inadvertently pronounced it in an impassioned plea for women's rights. It proved to be a prophecy but Freud would have labeled it a suppressed desire ! ) of women had proceeded. " Light grey flannel, high necked, long sleeved and ankle-length-skirted, with bloomers under the skirt." In 1872 Elizabeth Powell and Henry H. Bond, a lawyer of Northampton, Massachusetts, were married. An exceptionally congenial married life of nine years was saddened by the death of a little son. One son was left her when her husband died. In 1886 Elizabeth Powell Bond came to Swarthmore College, and there for twenty years " Dean Bond " wove into the tapestry of students' lives fibres of strength and beauty which will never fade. She had lived a full rich life before she came and all the gifts of her remarkable personality were poured out upon the youth she so well understood and loved. After her resignation she occupied herself with work for human brotherhood until her death in 1926 at the age of eighty-five. This book of her life is well and concisely written and holds the attention from beginning to end. Agnes L. Tierney Germantown, Pa. Smith, Edgar F. John Griscom, Chemist, 1774-1852. Philadelphia: 1925. Pp. 27, paper. Since his retirement as Provost of the University of Pennsylvania Dr. Smith has devoted much of his time to the study of the history of chemistry 94 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION in America and upon this subject has published an extremely interesting series of papers. This admirable contribution to the series sketches the life and services of John Griscom, " Pilgrim of Science " and " exemplar of the venerable Society of Friends to which he was devotedly attached." Born near Burlington, New Jersey, in 1774, John Griscom was led by early success in a local school to make " teaching the business of his life." He found in that work abundant satisfaction and opportunity for service, first in Burlington, later in New York, Providence and Philadelphia. Attaining to manhood at a time when the " reformed chemistry " of Lavoisier, Dalton, Davy and other brilliant European investigators was becoming known, and being deeply interested in science, it was but natural that his interest in chemistry should be stirred and that he should desire to become an expositor of the new ideas in his own country. As Professor of Chemistry in Rutgers Medical College, as teacher in the New York High School, which he was instrumental in founding, and perhaps still more as lecturer in chemistry to popular audiences in New York and elsewhere, he profoundly influenced the teaching and development of science in America. " For thirty years in New York City he was the acknowledged head of all other teachers of chemistry." Griscom " did not engage in research. . . . Yet he trained hundreds of investigators in his favorite science and himself fully perceived its vast importance to the arts, to medicine, and to the great...