OF DEXISON UNIVERSITY 



73 



error, we give only a half-hearted, half resentful assent to the truth 

 which we can dispute no longer. 



l"he imijerfect recognition of the importance of scientific studies, 

 Avhich has continued almost until now, was due in great part to the 

 half distrust with which all physical investigation was regarded ; but 

 another influence was almost equally potent. It was an inheritance 

 from older days. Education, formerly, was for the wealthy, for men 

 who were to be cloistered students or lawyers or physicians, all of 

 them, even the physicians, dealing almost wholly in abstractions. Mat- 

 ters of practical utility were beneath the contempt of scholars ; utili- 

 tarianism concerned only the vulgar sphere of commerce and manu- 

 factures. This conception appears absurd to us now, but not long ago, 

 its defenders dominated our colleges, controlled the professions and 

 moulded public opinion; the community believed that study of mater- 

 ial things does not cultivate the intellect, that the only elevating studies 

 are those derived from antiquity, with, as the capping stone, that pure 

 philosophy, to which those who study gross or material things can 

 never attain. 



The importance of scientific education has been conceded in 

 America, where recognition of the close relations between abstract and 

 applied science could not be avoided; for the application of principles 

 discovered by closet students has made available the mineral wealth of 

 our vast domain, until the United States has become one of the greatest 

 of manufacturing nations. Some Americans, who know little of what 

 their countrymen have done in pure science, seem to regard most of 

 the discoveries in applied science as practically piracies from European 

 students. But Americans have made contributions second in impor- 

 tance to those of no other country ; from the days of Franklin to our 

 own time each generation has born its full share of burden in erecting 

 the scientific edifice. Franklin's discovery of the identity of lightning 

 with frictional electricity opened a new world of investigation, while 

 leading to the {protection of man against his most dreaded enemy ; 

 Rumford's investigations of heat were not understood in all their bear- 

 ings for half a century, but were the suggestion for Joule and his con- 

 temporaries ; Henry's studies in electricity opened the way for Morse 

 and Vail and made the magnetic telegraph a possibility; John W. 

 Draper's investigation of light and his investigation of the spectrum, 

 made thirty years too soon, were the first long strides toward the devel- 

 opment of spectrography, which, in the hands of German students, 



