For centuries Tartu (Dorpat), the second largest city in Estonia after the capital Tallinn, has been one of the main academic centres in the Baltic region. In spite of the fact that Estonia became part of the Russian Empire in 1721, German influence in administration, culture, religion, education and politics remained very strong until the end of the 19th century, when the Russian Empire ‘russified’ many aspects of Estonian society. The University of Tartu, which was founded in 1632 by the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus, is one of the oldest and most important in Northern Europe. Its astronomical observatory was built in the years 1808-1810 following the project of the university architect Johann Wilhelm Krause on the top of the Toome hill, where several university buildings as well as the ruins of a medieval cathedral are located. The observatory building is essentially composed of a central body supporting the tower. On the 10th of November 1824, 22 big crates containing the disassembled Fraunhofer refractor arrived safely in Tartu after a journey of almost 2000 kilometres. In spite of its complexity, thanks to the accurate instructions of Fraunhofer, the instrument was not difficult to install and 5 days later the astronomer Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve who had ordered the instrument could do the first observations. At this point, it was the largest telescope in the world. Struve could not hold back his enthusiasm calling the instrument a masterpiece and explaining the possibilities it offered to an astronomer.

Thomas Peter Anderson Stuart (1856 – 1920) was the University of Sydney’s first Professor of Anatomy and Physiology. Although best remembered for founding the University’s Medical School, he has also been recognised as an exceedingly skilled educator. Anderson Stuart believed strongly in the use of models, diagrams and demonstrations in teaching and forged ahead with their use in this regard. It is also within the context of the classroom that Anderson Stuart touted the value of the zoetrope, a popular Victorian philosophical toy. In his memoirs, dictated to William Epps, Anderson Stuart positions himself as a pioneer in the use of the zoetrope to teach Natural Science – but how unique or unusual was this practice? Who or what may have influenced Anderson Stuart’s use of the zoetrope? What insights can be gleaned when considering the broader history of the instrument? And how might a global perspective shed further light on the zoetrope’s didactic role in science education?

I focus on a habit of mind very widespread and very consequential in eighteenth-century Europe and North America, namely a mania for improvement. I shall review the moral, social and economic sources of this condition before considering more particularly the constant improvement of optical, mathematical and philosophical instruments and its consequences for our understanding of eighteenth-century science. There is a world of difference between the inverted jars of Stephen Hales in the 1720s and the gazometer of Antoine Lavoisier in the 1780s, yet the latter clearly derives from the former. Likewise, there is a direct line of constant improvement from the tiny but novel reflecting telescope of Isaac Newton to the substantial reflectors of William Herschel in the 1770s. The rewards for using the most recent improved instrument at any point in the eighteenth century were remarkable and unexpected. Could there, for example, have been any changed theoretical understanding of gases without the instruments that contained, measured and manipulated that state of matter and how surprising was it to demonstrate the existence of a new planet?