886 PROPOSED APPLICATIONS OF SMITIISON's BEQUEST. 



bles of Carrara, another Catalini will enchant all Europe 

 with her song. The sarae causes which determine these 

 things there are in tenfold action here. We have no surety 

 of continuance, except from the increasing intelligence of 

 our people. 



If no other gain accrued to us from an establishment of 

 this kind than the development of the mineral resources of 

 the continent, we should be amply repaid. Nature has 

 scattered with a lavish hand her w^arehouses of metals 

 among us; she has given us inexhaustible riches, but there 

 does not exist in all the United States a single school of 

 mines. France, England, Sweden, Germany, have well- 

 organized institutions of this class — in some instances sup- 

 ported directly by the government, in others under the charge 

 of those interested in mines. In this consists the secret that 

 they are continually improving their processes of metallurgic 

 operations, and are able to extract profitable returns from 

 ores inferior to those which we daily pass Ijy with neglect. 



But there arc higher ends than this. No man, until he 

 is acquainted with physical science as it now exists, can have 

 any idea of the great things for which Providence has pre- 

 pared hira. He cannot think with what amazing power the 

 mind, aided by the vast enginery of geometry, passes from 

 cause to effect, or from cfi:ccts to causes — how it links to- 

 gether phenomena which might appear to him to have no^ 

 resemblance, and disentangles from the varying operations 

 of Nature the immutable laws which govern her — how^ 

 as it becomes evolved in these pursuits, it learns to take 

 those far-spreading views in which the unlettered can never 

 participate — how, looking backward on departed times, it 

 describes events which happened when there was no history 

 to record, no human eye to see; or looking forward with 

 the steady gaze of a jjrophet, unfolds what is to happen in 

 the coming eternity — how, reflecting as it were the image 

 of its Maker, and sharing in His omnipresence, it walks 

 through the fab.ric of the Universe, and examines the quali- 

 ties, the magnitudes, the relations of one star after another; 

 or, returning to the frail tabernacle that it tenants, reveals 

 its structure and functions, its general connection wnth the 

 system of organization — how it is rapidly penetrating the 

 mysteries of the world of life, exhibiting the great plan of 

 unity of design and the laws of progressive development, 

 and thereby ascertaining its own place and position in the 

 Universe, its continued dependence on an unceasing Provi- 

 dence. 



It is impossible that any one should become acquainted 



