238 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 28 



potentialities could have remained dormant for the Avhole period of 

 man's civilization. 



The Eoyal Institution of Great Britain was founded by Count 

 Rumford in 1799. Its stated purpose is "the promotion, diffusion, 

 and extension of science, and of useful knowledge." To its lectures 

 given by Sir Humphry Davy at the beginning of the last century 

 came a 3'oung bookbinder's apprentice, whose enthusiasm sufficiently 

 impressed the lecturer to result in his being appointed as assistant at 

 the institution. Unfortunately, it became necessary for the young 

 man to have some money wherewith to live, but there was no money 

 for scientific assistants. However, the institution had an appropri- 

 ation for janitors and so the bookbinder's apprentice, Michael Fara- 

 day, became janitor at the Royal Institution. I do not laiow how 

 efficiently he performed his duties in the office of janitor, but even 

 though he may have neglected the windows of the laboratory he 

 cleaned well the windows of science, and even though he may have 

 neglected the cobwebs on the walls of the building he cleaned many 

 of them from the horizon of knowledge. 



The fact that wires carrying currents possessing in many respects 

 the characteristics of magnets was already known, but it fell to 

 Faraday to discover the fact that batteries were not the only means 

 by which electric current could be produced, and to demonstrate the 

 fundamental principles upon which electrical engineering is based 

 to-day. By the labors of that little group of men. Ampere in France, 

 Faraday in England, and Henry in this country, we came into pos- 

 session of most of the facts governing the broader features of elec- 

 trical science, — the facts which tell us how to build a dynamo, a 

 motor, and the like. We came to know of strange new forces with 

 mysterious relations between them. But what was their explana- 

 tion — what was the secret of their mutual relations — of what broad 

 principles of the design of the universe did they form a part ? Then 

 came Clerk-Maxwell, who sought to correlate these discoveries into 

 a more harmonious unity. 



Maxwell was a great mathematician ; and, as a result of his labors, 

 he wrote a l)ook which feAv could read, but wliich, in the years that 

 have followed, has served to mold our thoughts to that comprehen- 

 sion of the subject which we enjoy to-day. 



The ]:>lace of the mathematician, of the dreamer, in natural philos- 

 ophy, is not always apparent to the layman. He takes the facts 

 which the experimenter gives him, and seeks to correlate them as 

 part of a greater framework of truth in the hope that the frame itself 

 shall suggest otlier things which may be true, and thus stimulate 

 further search, and Aviden our comprehension of the whole. A man 

 coining to us from another country, or from another world might, by 

 observing the actions of our President, our Secretary of Labor, and 



