160 THE AGE OF ELECTRICITY. 



the spot because tbey would not yield enough to pay for more com- 

 lilete removal. In the far West settlers are seldom seen witlunit their 

 revolvers, with which they are armed not only for defense against and, 

 if need be, the merciless extermination of the aborigines, but also to 

 light against newcomers, and thus maintain ^lossession of their fields 

 or mines. 



The multitude of emigrants, who are .prone to blend their various 

 origins and to constitute a peculiar race, comes in like an armj^ of 

 invaders gifted with unwonted pluck, and bent on making the most of 

 the country without many scruples or nmch regard for the future. 



I need not say that such a picture, in spite of its foundation of 

 truth, is no more accurate than a cartoon is like a, i>ortrait, but "Paris 

 en Amerique" is also a legend that jiuist be taken with consi<lerable 

 allowance. 



And yet a longer intercourse with the Americans, a more thorough 

 insight into their private lives and i)ublic institutions, a ]>artial dei)ar- 

 ture from the European standpoint and our historical traditiims, will 

 very soon create in us a genuine sense of admiration for the pro- 

 digious results they have achieved in a few centuries. The country 

 has received its true characteristics from its people of Anglo-iSaxon 

 descent; they have imbued it with a spirit of adventure, of profitable 

 enterprise, of independence and liberty. Those who go there with any 

 ambition for success must i)erforce conform by degrees to the same 

 ideas. In most cases the process of assimilation is evidenced by their 

 rapidly forgetting their mother tongue. Free will is impeded by no 

 trammels; everyone works for himself and his own, and makes as few 

 calls as possible on the lesources of the community. 



Without saying anything of the general departments of the Union 

 and of the several States which might profitably be considered, I only 

 wish to call your aftention for an instant to the part taken by private 

 initiative in scientific matters. We all have within us, at different 

 degrees of development, the notion of a State — Providence — but the 

 State is not ecjual to this universal function, and the support that is 

 too often demanded as of right from it is detrimental to the share that 

 each individual might take in matters of public interest. 



To be sure there are benefactors left in our country. Several names 

 are upon your li})s, and they would be the first to admit that examples 

 from the ISTew World are likely to enhance their merits in your opinion. 



The foundations of scientific institutions or establishments in the 

 United States are of two kinds. Some are progress! v^e; others are, so 

 to speak, extemporaneous. 



In the year KJUO a colony of Puritans, persecuted in England on 

 account of their religious tenets, came to America and founded the 

 town of Plymouth, on the coast of Massachusetts. In WoO others of 

 their faith from Boston and other parts of J^higland settled Boston, 

 Massachusetts, near Plymouth; their new city has eclipsed the mother 



