SCIENCE AND CULTURE. 161 



but, knowing that a parable will sometimes penetrate where syllogisms 

 fail to effect an entrance, I will offer a story for their consideration. 



Once upon a time, a boy, with nothing to depend upon but his own 

 vigorous nature, was thrown into the thick of the struggle for exist- 

 ence in the midst of a great manufacturing population. He seems to 

 have had a hard fight, inasmuch as, by the time he was thirty years of 

 age, his total disposable funds amounted to twenty pounds. Neverthe- 

 less, middle life found him giving proof of his comprehension of the 

 practical problems he had been roughly called upon to solve, by a career 

 of remarkable j^rosperity. Finally, having reached old age with its 

 well-earned surroundings of " honor, troops of friends," the hero of my 

 story bethought himself of those who were making a like start in life, 

 and how he could stretch out a helping hand to them. After long and 

 anxious reflection this successful practical man of business could devise 

 nothing better than to provide them Avith the means of obtaining 

 " sound, extensive, and practical scientific knowledge." And he de- 

 voted a large part of his wealth, and five years of incessant work, to 

 this end. I need not point the moral of a tale which, as the solid and 

 spacious fabric of the Scientific College assures us, is no fable, nor can 

 anything Avhich I could say intensify the force of this practical answer 

 to practical objections. 



We may take it for granted then, that, in the opinion of those best 

 qualified to judge, the diffusion of thorough scientific education is an 

 absolutely essential condition of industrial progress, and that the col- 

 lege opened to-day will confer an inestimable boon upon those whose 

 livelihood is to be gained by. the practice of the arts and manufactures 

 of the district. The only question worth discussion is, whether the 

 conditions, under which the work of the college is to be carried out, 

 are such as to give it the best possible chance of achieving permanent 

 success. 



Sir Josiah Mason, without doubt most wisely, has left very large 

 freedom of action to the trustees, to whom he projDoses ultimately to 

 commit the administration of the college, so that they may be able to 

 adjust its arrangements in accordance with the changing conditions of 

 the future. But, with respect to three points, he has laid most ex- 

 plicit injunctions upon both administrators and teachers. Party poli- 

 tics are forbidden to enter into the minds of either, so far as the work 

 of the college is concerned ; theology is as sternly banished from its 

 precincts ; and, finally, it is especially declared that the college shall 

 make no provision for " mere literary instruction and education." 



It does not concern me at present to dwell upon the first two in- 

 junctions any longer than may be needful to express my full convic- 

 tion of their wisdom. But the third prohibition brings us face to face 

 with those other opponents of scientific education who are by no 

 means in the moribund condition of the practical man, but alive, alert, 

 and formidable. It is not impossible that we shall hear this express 

 VOL. xvin. 11 



