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all can share the delight of the old workers in their discoveries as related 

 in their own words. By so presenting the subject we may also be incidentally 

 imparting valuable moral lessons. Remember the steadfastness of purpose and 

 noble lives of so many of the great men who have accumulated our modern 

 stock of scientific knowledge, from the time of Archimedes to the present day. 

 What could form a better antidote to the commercial spirit of our times than the 

 answer of Pasteur when Napoleon III. expressed surprise that the investigator 

 did not try to make his researches a source of personal profit? "In science," 

 Pasteur replied, "men of science would consider that they lowered themselves by so 

 doing ; '' or the reply of the naturalist Louis Agassiz, on a similar occasion, " I have 

 no time to make money." Or where shall we find a better type of courage than 

 that of the physician (Dr. Klein) who swallowed a spoonful of a pure culture of 

 cholera bacillus in order to put to test the theoretical results of the bacteriologist ? 

 Or consider that eminently Christian virtue, humility. The stories of the lives of 

 many of our greatest and most painstaking scientists do much to teach the imper- 

 fections and almost insignificance of man. Kelvin told us that the one word 

 which most characterised his life-work was " failure." Newton, shortly before his 

 death, said, " I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem 

 to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and devoting myself in now 

 and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the 

 great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." Yet how much do some 

 of those pebbles and shells mean to civilisation to-day. The beauty and joy which 

 science has brought to its followers may be pointed out to and experienced by the 

 student. The moral lessons are best left to be gradually absorbed, perhaps in 

 after years. By these paths also the student will be led from a consideration of the 

 perseverance and noble effort of the great pioneers to a true appreciation and 

 respect for science itself — for those great secrets wrested from Nature, which 

 now form perhaps the greatest heritage of man. Certainly there need be no lack 

 of human interest in the study of science, and no scarcity of valuable lessons to be 

 drawn, if we are prepared to use to the full the records of the past. 



The humanistic culture of the Greeks and Romans had many noble ideals in 

 view, but it is easy to see its limitations. The Roman had no sympathy with the 

 weak ; he despised the spirit of toleration ; scenery made little appeal to him, and 

 of science he had none to admire. The humanistic culture of science is of all 

 time. Its ideals rank with the noblest of those of Greece or of Christendom. It 

 is concerned in the search for the increase of knowledge and man's never-ending 

 quest of truth. 



G. N PlNGRIFF. 



