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multiply the chances of discovery, and widen the prospect of national 

 advancement." Thus early, you will see, I was alive to the importance 

 of technical education ; and I am no less alive to it now. You will 

 not, therefore, misunderstand me when I say that to keep technical 

 education from withering, and to preserve the applications of science 

 from decay, the roots of both of them must be well imbedded in the 

 soil of original investigation. And here let it be emphatically added, 

 that in such investigation practical results may enter as incidents, but 

 must never usurp the place of aims. The true son of science will pur- 

 sue his inquiries irrespective of practical considerations. He will ever 

 regard the acquisition and expansion of natural knowledge the un- 

 raveling of the complex web of Nature by the disciplined intellect of 

 man as his noblest end, and not as a means to any other end. And 

 what has been the upshot of science thus pursued ? Why, that the 

 investigator has over and over again tapped springs of practical power 

 which otherwise he would never have reached. Illustrations are here 

 manifold. I might point to the industries which affiliate themselves 

 with Faraday's discovery of benzol, and with his discovery of the laws 

 of electrolysis. But I need not go further than the fact that in this 

 our day a noble and powerful profession has been called into existence 

 by his discovery of magneto-electricity. The electric lamps which 

 mildly illuminate our rooms, the foci which flood with light of solar 

 brilliancy our railway-stations and public halls, can all be traced back 

 to an ancestral spark so small as to be barely visible. With impatient 

 ardor Faraday refused to pause in his quest of principles to intensify 

 his spark. That work he deliberately left to others, confidently pre- 

 dicting that it would be accomplished. And, prompted by motives 

 both natural and laudable, but which had never the slightest influence 

 on Faraday, others have developed his spark into the splendors which 

 now shine in our midst. 



It would be a handsome jubilee present, if it were a possible one, 

 to roll up the career of Faraday into portable form, and to offer it to 

 the Queen as the achievement of one of Her Majesty's most devoted 

 subjects during her own reign. Faraday's series of great discoveries, 

 however, began in 1831, which throws his work five or six years too 

 far back. During the rest of his fruitful life he was a loyal son of the 

 Victorian epoch. But, passing beyond the limitations of the indi- 

 vidual, what is science, as a whole, able to offer, on the golden wed- 

 ding of the Queen with her people ? A present of the principle of 

 gravitation a handing over to Her Majesty of the bit and bridle 

 whereby the compelling intellect of Newton brought the solar system 

 under the yoke of physical laws would surely be a handsome offer- 

 ing. I mention this case of known and conspicuous grandeur, in order 

 to fix the value of another generalization which the science of her 

 reign can proudly offer to the Queen. Quite fit to take rank with the 

 principle of gravitation more momentous if that be possible is that 



