He graduated with honors from gymnasium in December 1857, but only by autumn 1858 managed to enroll to the Saint Petersburg State University, as he was still under the prescribed age of 16.

While he acquired a sufficient knowledge of theory he was lacking practice, as at that time the entire laboratory of the university consisted of only two small rooms.

In 1865 Menshutkin returned to St. Petersburg, just after his PhD thesis was published in the Comptes Rendus of the French Academy under the title “Action du chlorure d’acetyle sur l’acide phosphoreux”.

In connection with his teaching he proceeded to rearrange the course of instructions and in 1871 brought out his well-known textbook, which survived 16 editions up to 1931 and had been translated into German and English.

The autonomy granted in 1863 was revoked and all officials could only be appointed by the Minister of Public Instruction; the admission of students was hindered by accepting them only from certain schools, the fees were raised and the number of professorships reduced.

About this time he prepared his large handbook of organic chemistry, which appeared in three successive editions, and in 1888 he published a history of the development of chemical theory.

Only by 1890 money could be found for this purpose and in this year Mendeleev resigned his chair, leaving Menshutkin in the position of senior professor of the university.

[4] For his PhD thesis, Menshutkin studied the reactions of phosphonic acid and was able to prove that not all three hydrogen atoms in the molecule are equivalent and therefore the formula HP(O)(OH)2 is more likely than P(OH)3.

Subsequently, the rate of chemical change was studied in the case of the formation of amides and anilides by the action of ammonia and aniline on acids by means of the same method as was employed in the esterification experiments.

These researches led on to others, such as the study of the mutual displacement of bases in homogeneous systems, and the influence of temperature on the rate of several reactions.