A PLEA FOR PURE SCIENCE. 31 



and powerful nation has been created on the face of the earth. We 

 are proud of our advancement. We are proud of such cities as this, 

 founded in a day upon a spot over which, but a few years since, the 

 red-man hunted the buffalo. But we must remember that this is only 

 the spring of our country. Our glance must not be backward ; for, 

 however beautiful leaves and blossoms are, and however marvelous 

 their rapid increase, they are but leaves and blossoms, after all. 

 Rather should we look forward to discover what will be the outcome 

 of all this, and what the chance of harvest. For, if we do this in time, 

 we may discover the worm which threatens the ripe fruit, or the bar- 

 ren spot where the harvest is withering for want of water. 



I am required to address the so-called physical section of this As- 

 sociation. Fain would I speak pleasant words to you on this subject ; 

 fain would I recount to you the progress made in this subject by my 

 countrymen, and their noble efforts to understand the order of the 

 universe. But I go out to gather the grain ripe to the harvest, and I 

 find only tares. Here and there a noble head of grain rises above the 

 weeds ; but so few are they that I find the majority of my country- 

 men know them not, but think that they have a waving harvest, while 

 it is only one of weeds, after all. American science is a thing of the fu- 

 ture, and not of the present or past ; and the proper course of one in my 

 position is to consider what must be done to create a science of physics 

 in this country, rather than to call telegraphs, electric lights, and such 

 conveniences, by the name of science. I do not wish to underrate the 

 value of all these things : the progress of the world depends on them, 

 and he is to be honored who cultivates them successfully. So also 

 the cook who invents a new and palatable dish for the table benefits 

 the world to a certain degree ; yet we do not dignify him by the name 

 of a chemist. And yet it is not an uncommon thing, especially in 

 American newspapers, to have the applications of science confounded 

 with pure science : and some obscure American who steals the ideas of 

 some great mind of the past, and enriches himself by the application 

 of the same to domestic uses, is often lauded above the great origina- 

 tor of the idea, who might have worked out hundreds of such appli- 

 cations, had his mind possessed the necessary element of vulgarity. I 

 have often been asked which was the more important to the world, 

 pure or applied science. To have the applications of a science, the 

 science itself must exist. Should we stop its progress, and attend 

 only to its applications, we should soon degenerate into a people like 

 the Chinese^ who have made no progress for generations, because they 

 have been satisfied with the applications of science, and have never 

 sought for reasons in what they have done. The reasons constitute 

 pure science. They have known the application of gunpowder for 

 centuries ; and yet the reasons for its peculiar action, if sought in the 

 proper manner, would have developed the science of chemistry, and 

 even of physics, with all their numerous applications. By contenting 



