Dumas early recognized the importance of laboratory instruction in chemistry, for which there were no facilities at Paris when he first came to what was then the center of the world's science; and in 1832 founded a laboratory for research at his own expense. This laboratory, first established at the Polytechnic School, was removed to the Rue Cuvier in 1839, where it remained until broken up by the Revolution of 1848. The laboratory was small, and Dumas would receive only a few advanced students, and these on terms wholly gratuitous. Among these students were Piria, Stas, Melsens, Leblanc, Lalande, and Lewy, with whose aid he carried on many of his important investigations. By the Revolution of 1848 Dumas's activities were for a time diverted into political channels; but under the Second Empire his laboratory was re-established at the Sorbonne, and in 1868 was removed to the Ecole Centrale. The political episode of Dumas's life was the natural result of an active mind with wide sympathies, which recognizes in the pressing demands of society its highest duty. The political and social upheaval of 1848 seemed at the time to endanger the stability in France of everything which a cultivated and learned man holds most dear; and Dumas was not one to consider his own preferences when he felt he could aid in averting the calamities which threatened his country. Immediately after the Revolution of February, he accepted a seat in the Legislative Assembly offered him by the electors of the Arrondissement of Valenciennes. Shortly afterward the President of the Republic called him to fill the office of Minister of Agriculture and Commerce. During the Second Empire he was elevated to the rank of Senator, and shortly after his entrance into the Senate he became Vice-President of the High Council of Education. In order to reform the abuses into which many of the higher educational institutions of Paris had fallen, be accepted a place in the Municipal Council of Paris, over which he subsequently presided from 1859 to 1870.