ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. 303 



and furnaces, of steam and electricity : as a land which 

 science, practically applied, has made great in peace 

 and mighty in war: I ask you whether this 6 land of 

 old and just renown ' has not a right to expect from her 

 institutions a culture more in accordance with her 

 present needs than that supplied by declension and 

 conjugation? And if the tendency should be to lower 

 the estimate of science, by regarding it exclusively as 

 the instrument of material prosperity, let it be the 

 high mission of our universities to furnish the proper 

 counterpoise by pointing out its nobler uses lifting 

 the national mind to the contemplation of it as the last 

 development of that * increasing purpose ' which runs 

 through the ages and widens the thoughts of men. 



