Professor Clarke was born in Boston, March 14, 1847, and was graduated from the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University in 1867. Two years later, in 1869, he was appointed instructor in chemistry in Cornell University, the first assistant ever appointed at that institution. His next position was that of professor of chemistry and physics in Howard University, Washington, in 1873 and 1874. In the latter year he became professor of chemistry and physics in the University of Cincinnati, in a position which he held till 1883, when he became chief chemist to the United States Geological Survey and honorary curator of minerals in the United States National Museum, where he still remains.
Professor Clarke, having become a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1869, assisted, in 1875—'76, in the organization of its section on chemistry, a branch which had theretofore been but little represented in the Proceedings of the association. Prof. S. W. Johnson was elected chairman of the new section for the meeting in 1876 at Detroit, and Professor Clarke was commissioned to make the necessary efforts to insure a full attendance of chemists and others interested in the applications of chemistry. In 1888 he presided over the section; and he has ever been active in building it up, and in the development of the American Chemical Society.
Professor Clarke has published about seventy-five scientific papers in various journals, and many popular articles, especially in Appletons' Journal and the Popular Science Monthly. His first scientific paper, A New Process in Mineral Analysis, was published in the American Journal of Science for March, 1869. Other important papers have related to analytical methods, to the constitution of the tartrates of antimony, and to topics on chemical mineralogy, including especially the constitution of the silicates.
Many of his popular articles relate to educational affairs, and present forcible arguments for a fuller recognition of science in the course of instruction, and cogent demonstrations of the need of better teaching of science and better qualified teachers. When occasion has arisen, he has fearlessly exposed and denounced humbug in education. In a paper on The Higher Education, published in the seventh volume of the Popular Science Monthly, having defined the purpose of true education as being "to develop the mind; to strengthen the thinking faculties in every possible direction; to render the acquisition of new knowledge easier and surer; to increase the student's resources; and to render him better fitted for dealing with the useful affairs of the world," he sets forth the advantages of science over the ancient and even the modern languages for the accomplishment of it. Science, he reasons, furnishes as good
