114 SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION: v 



merely for the sake of the coarse and tangible 

 results of success, but because humanity is so con- 

 stituted that a vast number of us would never be 

 impelled to those stretches of exertion which make 

 us wiser and more capaljle men, if it were not for 

 the absolute necessity of putting on our faculties 

 all the strain they will bear, for the purpose of 

 " getting on *' in the most practical sense. 



Now the value of a knowledge of physical sci- 

 ence as a means of getting on is indubitable. 

 There are hardly any of our trades, except the 

 merely huckstering ones, in which some knowledge 

 of science may not be directly profitable to the pur- 

 suer of that occupation. As industry attains higher 

 stages of its development, as its processes become 

 more complicated and refined, and competition 

 more keen, the sciences are dragged in, one by one, 

 to take their share in the fray; and he who can 

 best avail himself of their help is the man who will 

 come out up])ermost in that struggle for existence, 

 Avhich goes on as fiercely beneath the smooth sur- 

 face of modern society, as among the wild inhab- 

 itants of the woods. 



But in addition to the bearing of science on 

 ordinary practical life, let me direct your attention 

 to its immense influence on several of the profes- 

 sions. 1 ask any one who has adopted the calling 

 of an engineer, how much time he lost when he 

 left school, because he had to devote himself to 

 pursuits which were absolutely novel and strange, 



