XX. THE APPLIED SCIENCES, AND) THE MODE OF 

 TEACHING THEM. 



Frakction delivered on the occasion of the opening of the School of Engineering in t/it 

 University of Dublin, on the 15th of November, 1841. 



' ' Magnum certe discrimen inter res civiles et artes : non enim idem periculum a 

 novo motu et a nova luce. Verum in rebus civilibus mutatio etiam in melius suspecta 

 est ob perturbationem : cum civilia authoritate, consensu, famS et opinione, non demons- 

 tratione nituntur. In artibus autem et scientiis, tanquam in metalli fodinis, omnia 

 novis operibus ct ulterioribus progressibus circumstrepere debent." BACON, Novmn 

 Oryanum, lib. i. 



GENTLEMEN, It has been said by one of the wisest of men, that 

 every thing in the institutions and customs of colleges was opposed 

 to the progress of science. "We are met this day to exhibit a prac- 

 tical refutation of this vaunted aphorism ; to prove that the 

 universities of the present day, so far from impeding the march 

 of truth, form themselves the vanguard of that intellectual army, 

 whose victories are in the region of the unknown ; and that, 

 while with one hand they are engaged in flinging back the fruits 

 of conquest, with the other they aid in propelling the triumphal 

 car of science into new and remoter regions. 



We are met this day, under the auspices of the University, to 

 follow together some of the principal applications of science to the 

 wants and to the uses of man. But, in stating that such is the 

 object of the addition which has been recently made to the insti- 

 tutions of this college by its heads, let me guard you against tho 

 notion, that it is in anywise intended as a concession to that un- 

 philosophical, but unhappily too popular feeling, which decries as 

 worthless every intellectual pursuit, if unaccompanied by results 



