Frontispiece engraving by James Davis for the New Edition of Samuel Parkes', \The Chemical Catechism, with Notes, Illustrations and Experiments\" (1818). Darwin was influenced by this book. In his autobiography (1887) Darwin wrote \"Towards the close of my school life, my brother worked hard at chemistry, and made a fair laboratory with proper apparatus in the tool house of the garden, and I was allowed to aid him as a servant in most of his experiments. (-) I read with great care several books on Chemistry such as Henry and Parkes'Chemical Catechism'. The subject interested me greatly and we often used to go on working till rather late at night. This was the best part of my education at school, for it showed me practically the meaning of experimental science.\" he goes on \"I was once publically rebuked by the headmaster, Dr. Butler, for thus wasting my time on such useless subjects\"."