Mcluan .] iJ v\> [March 15. 



something more about it. Even ;i wheelbarrow was not be- 

 neath his notice. He would intivestigate a Lamp.* or a stove, 

 or a kitchen, or a smoky chimney, or the phenomena 

 of heat, or light, just as Franklin did. Through hisetlbrts, 

 with some of his money and what he could induce a few- 

 others to contribute, the; Royal Institution of London was 

 founded, and he left at his death some money for medals as 

 prizes for origiual research. I hardly agree with President 

 Grilmau that the best result of Benjamin Thompson's gifts 

 and legacies came out of the Harvard medal and other 

 prizes. In my judgment the best results that came out of 

 Rumford's work was the Royal Institution. It was not 

 provided with a grand architectural home at the expense of 

 the foundation fund. I do not know what kind of housing 

 it has now r , but for a long period of its career it had a very 

 plain habitation, and yet from that small amount of money 

 given, or procured to be given, by Count Rumford to that. 

 institution, we have Sir William Young, Sir Humphrey 

 Davy, Michael Faraday and John Tyndall, and all the pro- 

 gress in useful knowledge they have given to the world. No 

 money was wasted there upon a structure. He simply, with 

 the aid that came to him and to his idea, provided and en- 

 dowed a chair in which a man of philosophic mind, a man 

 with a turn lor scientific investigation could give his whole 

 time to original research, the sort of investigation that has 

 moved the world along. It was not required that the man 

 who occupied that chair should be occupied all night long- 

 as a teacher, in getting up his lectures for his class; it was 

 not required that the occupant of that chair should be sub- 

 jected to the drudgery of life — to earn money by which his 

 family was to be supported. Bui there was an endowment, 

 a small endowment, which gave to its occupant a sufficient 



