674 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



amiouncement was hailed with one general 

 shout of acclamation. . . . There were some, 

 however, who, being conversant with the 

 actual condition of the art of steam-engi- 

 neeiing as applied to navigation, . . . were 

 enabled to estimate, calmly and dispassion 

 ately, the difficulties and drawbacks, as well 

 as the advantages of the undertaking. . . . 

 These persons entertained doubts, which 

 clouded the brightness of their hopes, and 

 warned the commercial world against the 

 indulgence of too sanguine anticipations of 

 the immediate and unqualified realization of 

 the project. But the voice of remonstrance 

 was drowned amid the loud shouts of public 

 enthusiasm, excited by the promise of an 

 immediate practical realization of a scheme 

 so grand. 



" The keel of the Great Western was 

 laid, an assurance was given that the sea- 

 sons would not twice run through their 

 changes before she would be followed by a 

 splendid line of vessels which should con- 

 sign the 'packet-ships' to the care of the 

 historian, as ' things that were.' 



" The Great Western progressed and was 

 launched, and the enterprise has now had a 

 fair trial during ten years, a suffitieutly long 

 time, it is presumed, to test it. The packet- 

 ships, however, have not been swept from 

 the ocean ; on the contrary, they have been 

 improved in efficiency, increased in magni- 

 tude, and multiplied in number. Capital, 

 instead of being drawn from them, allured 

 by the prospective advantages of the steam 

 liners, has only collected around them in 

 augmented amount, obeying, as it always 

 does, that irresistible attraction which prof- 



itable results invariably exercise in com- 

 merce. Ou the other hand, the steam pro- 

 ject which was to prove their doom has 

 made its flash, and disappeared, leaving the 

 Great Western . . . alone in her glory . . . 

 to esiablish at once the abstract practicability 

 of the scheme in a mechanical sense, and the 

 utter inadequacy of its organization in a 

 commercial sense.'''' 



This was the opinion of Dr. Lardner in 

 1846, nearly twenty years after the publica- 

 tion of the edition of his lectures quoted by 

 Dr Burns, and more than ten years after 

 ocean steam -navigation had become an es- 

 ' tablished mechanical fact. The views en- 

 tertained by Dr. Lardner at that time were 

 very simular to those entertained by scien- 

 tists to-day in regard to the problem of 

 aerial navigation, mechanically practicable, 

 but in the present conditions of inventions 

 pertaining to it, so far as its commercial 

 value is concerned, an impracticability ; 

 moreover. Dr. Lardner, in the lecture from 

 which I quote, uses almost the same argu- 

 ments quoted by Dr. Burns, from Professor 

 Renwick's foot-note, viz., the large amount 

 of fuel necessary for long ocean voyages, 

 and the great expense attending its use, as 

 compared with the cost of sailing vessels. 



Dr. Lardner, however, lived to see ocean 

 navigation by steam a success, commercially 

 as well as mechanically, and to qualify many 

 of the ideas and arguments advanced in his 

 earlier lectures. 



Very respectfully, 



A. W. Erwin. 



Sioux Citv, Iowa, February 3, 1879. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



MORE ROOM FOR THE SCIENCES. 



IT can not be kept too clearly in mind 

 that the broad issue of modern ed- 

 ticational reform is whether sciences or 

 languages shall predominate as objects 

 and instruments of culture. Shall phys- 

 ical nature, life, man, society, and the 

 actual phenomena of experience, be- 

 come the leading objects of study; or 

 shall the acquisition of forms of speech, 

 the accumulation of verbal symbols, and 

 the discipline of grammar-grinding con- 

 tinue to hold their traditional ascend- 

 ancy? No question now arises as to 

 taking both of these modes of mental 

 culture along together, for it is con- 

 "»ceded on all hands that neither can be 



dispensed with, but the contest is as to 

 which shall lead in a rivalry of widely 

 different systems. The issue is, by 

 which method shall the education of 

 the future be cliaracterized? 



The languages are in possession, and 

 of course have great advantages in the 

 conflict from this fact. For the notion 

 has grown up that a liberal knowledge 

 of language u education, while nothing 

 else is properly entitled to the name. 

 Lingual studies, moreover, have the 

 vast advantage that they are taken as 

 the standards and measures of acquisi- 

 tion. Memorizing words, learning rules, 

 construing and translating, make profi- 

 ciency easily determinable; and when 



