136 GEORGE HERBERT STOCKBRIDGE 



Professor Thomson has already been honored with the 

 highest marks of distinction for his scientific achievements. 

 In 1889, he received from the French government the deco- 

 ration of an Officier de la Legion d' Honneur. In the same 

 year he was awarded the Grand Prix at the Paris Exposi- 

 tion for his electrical discoveries and inventions. The elec- 

 trical jury headed by M. Mascart, gave a special dejeuner 

 in his honor, and in London he was one of the speakers at 

 the Guildhall dinner, on which occasion he reflected honor 

 upon American science, by making a very happy speech before 

 six hundred of the foremost engineers and scientists of the 

 world. Yale college, in 1890, gave Professor Thomson the 

 honorary degree of Master of Arts. 



Whatever may be said about journalism as a school of 

 literary training, or the world of affairs as a kindergarten of 

 social and political philosophy, it is pretty well estabhshed 

 by experience, in America, that the factory is a bad scientific 

 school. We do not need to inquire how the habits of Frank- 

 lin's mind or expression were affected by his journaHstic 

 and his political duties, but we know that the invention 

 of the lightning rod did not make him a scientist ; he was that 

 before. Scientists often become inventors, but inventors 

 rarely become scientists. Out of the large number of elec- 

 trical inventors — some of them of great prominence — who 

 have obtained their knowledge of electricity mainly from 

 practical experience in the workshop, it would be hard to 

 select a single example of a man who has added to the general 

 knowledge of electrical laws and principles. This function 

 iis confined almost exclusively to those who are, or have been, 

 'laboratory workers. It may be stated broadly that the 

 only electricians who are now devoting their attention se- 

 riously to the formulation of electrical science as such, either 

 are or have been schoolmen, and most of them bear a title 

 indicating the teacher. Some, like Professor Thomson, have 

 been called from their scholastic duties by the large manu- 

 facturing companies. Professor Anthony, formerly of Cornell, 

 and now with the Mather Electric company, is another case 

 in point. Dr. Louis Bell, who was at one time a professor in 



