68z POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of ISTature. The movements of the clouds, the fall of rain, the flow of 

 brook and river, the changes of the seasons, the succession of calm 

 and storm, do not pass before your eyes now as they once did. While 

 they minister to the joy of life, they speak to you of that all-embrac- 

 ing system of process and law that governs the world. The wayside 

 flower is no longer to your eyes merely a thing of beauty. You have 

 found it to be that and far more — an exquisite organism in which the 

 several parts are admirably designed to promote the growth of the 

 plant and to perpetuate the life of the species. Every insect and 

 bird is now to you an embodiment of the mystery of life. The forces 

 of [Nature, once so dark and so dreaded, are now seen by you to be 

 intelligible, orderly, and capable of adaptation to the purposes of man. 

 In the physical and chemical laboratories you have been brought into 

 personal contact with these forces, and have learned to direct their 

 operations, as you have watched the manifold effects of energy on 

 the infinite varieties of matter. 



When you have completed your course of study and leave this 

 college, crowned, I hope, with academic distinction, there will be 

 your future career in life to choose and follow. A small number 

 among you may, perhaps, be so circumstanced as to be able to devote 

 yourselves entirely to original scientific research, selecting such 

 branches of inquiry as may have specially interested you here, and 

 giving up your whole time and energy to investigation. A much 

 larger number will, no doubt, enter professions where a scientific 

 training can be turned to practical account, and you may become 

 engineers, chemists, or medical men. But in the struggle for exist- 

 ence, which every year grows keener among us, these professions are 

 more and more crowded, so that a large proportion of your ranks may 

 not succeed in finding places there, and may in the end be pushed 

 into walks in life where there may be little or no opportunity for 

 making much practical use of the knowledge in science which you 

 have gained here. To those who may ultimately be thus situated it 

 will always be of advantage to have had the mental training given 

 in this institution, and it will probably be your own fault if, even 

 under unfavorable conditions, you do not find, from time to time, 

 chances of turning your scientific acquirements to account. Your 

 indebtedness to your professors demands that you shall make the 

 effort, and, for the credit of the college, you are bound to do 

 your best. 



Among the mental habits which your education in science has 

 helped to foster, there are a few which I would specially commend 

 to your attention as worthy of your most sedulous care all 

 through life. 



In the first place, I would put accuracy. You have learned in 



