650 HENRY A. ROWLAND 



what Faraday has given freely to us, and speak his name with the rever- 

 ence due, not only to his intellectual eminence, but to his character. 

 Too noble to leave science for the wealth held out to him, he persevered 

 in it to the end, and gave to the world the fruits of his labor in his 

 ' Experimental Researches in Electricity.' 



He never obtained from the world the material reward for his labor, 

 but died a poor man, who had enriched the world. 



We stand at an important epoch in the history of our science. We 

 have gone far enough into its practical applications to see some dis- 

 tance into the future. The arc light, which Davy brought into promi- 

 nence at the beginning of this century, fed by the machines of Faraday, 

 blazes throughout the night in all cities of the world. The incandescent 

 light, known long to scientists, has been improved and bids fair to rival 

 gas in cheapness, as it surpasses it in beauty. The secondary battery 

 discovered by Ritter eighty years or more ago, improved by Plante and 

 Faure in recent times, still struggles to fill the place assigned to it, to be 

 replaced by one before long which shall not waste fifty per cent of the 

 power given to it, and weigh tons for a few foot-pounds of energy stored 

 up. We see it in its new form replacing the laboring horses in the 

 streets, and serving in many cases where small power is needed. But the 

 transmission of energy seems to me to open one of the widest fields, and 

 the time is not very distant when a few large engines will replace the 

 numerous small ones in our cities; when also the power of waterfalls may 

 be made available at a distance. 



The principle of the telephone also is destined to bear unseen fruit. 



There is work for all, the practical and theoretical man alike. 



The philosopher, studying the problems of the universe, deems himself 

 rewarded by some new fact discovered, some new law demonstrated. To 

 him the universe is a problem to solve, and his motto is, " Science is 

 knowledge." 



He sees before him the time when man's insight into nature shall be 

 vastly increased, and esteems the science of to-day as but an atom to 

 what we shall know in the future. While not despising the wealth, he 

 seldom has time for its accumulation, as he considers other things of 

 vastly more importance; the truth is what he seeks; the truth as to this 

 wonderful universe in which we live. What is matter? what is electric- 

 ity, what is the medium which transmits light from one point to an- 

 other, how comes it that the earth, is magnetic? These are some of the 

 problems he is trying to solve. He knows that one man can do but little 

 toward it, even though he should surpass what Faraday has done, but 



