MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 99 



development proceeds, and with a rapidity such as to make us believe that, 

 much as there is known to us, the unknown far exceeds it; and that, exten- 

 sive as is the teaching of method, facts, and law, which can bo established 

 at present, an education looking for far greater results should be favored and 

 preserved. The results already obtained are so large as even in money value 

 to be of very great importance; as regards their higher influence upon the 

 human mind, especially when that is considered in respect of cultivation, 

 I trust they are, and ever will be, far greater. 



Xo intention exists here of comparing one telegraph with another, or of 

 assigning their respective dates, merits, or special uses. Those of Mr. 

 Wheatstone are selected for the visible illustration of a brief argument in 

 favor of a large public recognition of scientific education, because he is a 

 man both of science and practice, and was one of the very earliest in the 

 field, and because certain large steps in the course of his telegraphic life will 

 tell upon the general argument. Without referring to what he had clone 

 previously, it may be observed that, in 1840, he took out patents for electric 

 telegraphs, which included, amongst other things, the use of electricity from 

 magnets at the communicator, the dial face, the step-by-step motion, 

 and the electro-magnet at the indicator. At the present time, 18-38, he has 

 taken out patents for instruments containing all these points; but these 

 instruments are so altered and varied in character above the former that 

 an untaught person could not recognize them. The changes may be consid- 

 ered as the result of education upon the one mind which has been con- 

 cerned with them, and are to me strong illustrations of the effects which 

 general scientific education may be expected to produce. In the first instru- 

 ments powerful magnets were used, and keepers, with heavy coils, asso- 

 ciated with them. When magnetic electricity was first discovered, the signs 

 were feeble, and the mind of the student was led to increase the results by 

 increasing the force and size of the instruments. When the object was to 

 obtain a current sufficient to give signals through long circuits, large appa- 

 ratus were employed, but these involved the inconveniences of inertia and 

 momentum; the keeper was not set in motion at once, nor instantly stopped; 

 and, if connected directly with the reading indexes, these circumstances 

 caused an occasional uncertainty of action. Prepared by its previous edu- 

 cation, the mind could perceive the disadvantages of these influences, and 

 could proceed to their removal ; and now a small magnet is used to send suf- 

 ficient currents through 12, 20, 50, 100, or several hundred miles; a keeper 

 and helix is associated with it, which the hand can easily put in motion ; 

 and the currents are not sent out of the indicating instrument to tell their 

 story, until a key is depressed, and thus irregularity contingent upon first 

 action is removed. A small magnet, ever ready for action and never wast- 

 ing, can replace the voltaic battery; if powerful agencies be required, the 

 electro-magnet can be employed without any change in principle or tele- 

 graphic practice; and as magneto-electric currents have special advantages 

 over voltaic currents, these are in every case retained. These advantages I 

 consider as the result of scientific education, much of it not tutorial, but of 

 self: but there is a special privilege about the science branch of education, 

 namely, that what is personal in the first instance immediately becomes an 

 addition to the stock of scientific learning, and passes into the hands of the 

 tutor, to be used by him in the education of others, and enable them, in 

 turn, to educate themselves. How well may the young man, entering upon 

 his duties in electricity, be taught, by Avhat is past, to watch for the smallest 



