adolescent mind must be allowed to open slowly." He admitted young
Perkin at the age of fifteen and started him on research at the end of
his second year. An American student nowadays thinks he is lucky if he
gets started on his research five years older than Perkin. Now if
Hofmann had studied pedagogical psychology he would have been informed
that nothing chills the ardor of the adolescent mind like being set at
tasks too great for its powers. If he had heard this and believed it, he
would not have allowed Perkin to spend two years in fruitless endeavors
to isolate phenanthrene from coal tar and to prepare artificial
quinine--and in that case Perkin would never have discovered the aniline
dyes. But Perkin, so far from being discouraged, set up a private
laboratory so he could work over-time. While working here during the
Easter vacation of 1856--the date is as well worth remembering as
1066--he was oxidizing some aniline oil when he got what chemists most
detest, a black, tarry mass instead of nice, clean crystals. When he
went to wash this out with alcohol he was surprised to find that it gave
a beautiful purple solution. This was "mauve," the first of the aniline
dyes.

The funny thing about it was that when Perkin tried to repeat the
experiment with purer aniline he could not get his color. It was because
he was working with impure chemicals, with aniline containing a little
toluidine, that he discovered mauve. It was, as I said, a lucky
accident. But it was not accidental that the accident happened to the
young fellow who spent his noonings and vacations at the study of
chemistry. A man may not find what he is looking for, but he never
finds anything unless he is looking for something.

Mauve was a product of creative chemistry, for it was a substance that
had never existed before. Perkin's next great triumph, ten years later,