l859- INAUGURAL LECTURE. 351 



the practice of his favourite science, now returning to it as 

 one whom men delighted to honour, with, in his turn, young 

 and ardent students working under his directions. It was 

 found to be too small to accommodate Dr. Wilson's num- 

 bers, and a second laboratory, also within the college, was 

 fitted up, but never used, the arrangements in it being 

 scarcely completed when the session began. His opening 

 lecture was on " Technology as a Branch of Liberal Study," 

 and was chiefly devoted to illustrations of the benefits 

 resulting from science and art, theory and practice, doctrine 

 and work, acting and reacting on each other. Viewing his 

 own Chair as in some measure the uniting link between the 

 two, he considered historically the evils resulting from every 

 attempt at a monopoly in knowledge, as, e.g., with the 

 monks and knights of old. Even the Universities of 

 Christendom had been tainted with the spirit of selfish 

 exclusiveness ; and thus the " intellectual blood which 

 should have flowed in the veins of the World, was left to 

 stagnate in the heart, and paralyse its motions." 



The plan and purpose of his Chair, and the Museum in 

 connexion with it, are more fully developed in this lecture 

 than in any previous one ; and, as befits his intermediate 

 position, he pleads, on the one hand, that scientific know- 

 ledge be, extended and made serviceable to every practical 

 worker; while, on the other, he shows what claims the 

 workers in pure science have on the gratitude of all. 



The crowded audience on this opening day seemed to 

 give him a new welcome, and open before him a bright vista 

 of useful and honourable service to his fellow men. Each 

 succeeding day confirmed the promise of this one, till the 

 difficulty came to be how his audience could be accommo- 

 dated in the lecture-room. The disadvantages of previous 

 years in regard to such matters became more than ever 



