WILLIAM SIEMENS, F.R.S. 22Q 



those who availed themselves of the invitation received from that 

 city. They had had associated with them the leading scientific 

 men and metallurgists of France, and they had been invited to 

 visit its most important works, and had been shewn an amount of 

 cordial hospitality such as they could not soon forget. (Hear, 

 hear.) He had, therefore, great satisfaction in resigning his office 

 that day, and in saying that, at any rate, the Institute had not 

 suffered during the time he had held the honourable position of 

 President. (Hear, hear.) He owed this to those who had 

 supported him more than to his own individual efforts, although 

 those efforts, whatever their shortcomings, had been most cordially 

 given. The President-elect was a gentleman who was well known 

 to them for his great practical knowledge. He had been one of 

 those who had founded the prosperity of the great Cleveland iron 

 district. But although some years ago he professed chiefly that 

 kind of knowledge which they called practical the knowledge 

 obtained by observation a remarkable change, he noticed, had of 

 late come over him. He (the President-elect), now spoke of a 

 hundredth per cent, of phosphorus and carbon in steel, as though 

 he had just emerged from the laboratory of the School of Mines, 

 and he had proved in his own person the great importance of the 

 change wrought in the opinions of practical metallurgists through 

 the operations of the Iron and Steel Institute. After all there 

 was no essential difference between knowledge obtained by observa- 

 tion and knowledge obtained through study, and it seemed absurd 

 for one man to say " I prefer one method of obtaining knowledge," 

 and for another to say " I prefer knowledge obtained in another 

 way." It was only the conjunction of study and observation that 

 constituted perfect knowledge, or such knowledge as was productive 

 of useful results. It was for the extension of such knowledge that 

 the Institute existed, and for such knowledge it had done good 

 service. He had great pleasure in introducing into the chair his 

 successor, their President-elect, Mr. Williams. (Cheers.) 



