652 HEXEY A. ROWLAND 



Africa and would have languished in our own country. In London, in 

 contact with the science of Europe and encouraged by its atmosphere, 

 with the Royal Society at which to announce his discoveries and the 

 Royal Institution in which to make them, Faraday, in spite of poor 

 education, was stimulated to his best efforts. Alone in one of our iso- 

 lated colleges, cut off from intercourse with the rest of the world by a 

 so-called protective duty on his very life, books, with no journal spe- 

 cially devoted to theoretic physics, and no society like the Royal Society, 

 who can say whether his discoveries would have been made or not? The 

 endowment of research seems to me to offer the best means out of the 

 difficulty. Let professorships be endowed and funds to pay the expenses 

 of apparatus and assistants be formed in our universities, with the under- 

 standing that the research is to be the principal work; work, while teach- 

 ing is not to be neglected. The result will be the formation of a scien- 

 tific atmosphere in which men like Faraday can live and labor, and the 

 dry bones of the pedagogue be replaced by the fire and life of the orig- 

 inal investigator. And let not practical science be neglected. Let us 

 have scientific schools of the highest grade, where modern science is 

 taught, so that fifty years shall not again pass, as it has done, before a 

 discovery like that of Faraday is utilized. 



Furthermore, let us have scientific societies and clubs like the pres- 

 ent, where men of like tastes can meet and interchange ideas. 



Thus we meet together to-night, electricians all, practical and theo- 

 retical, at a time in the history of our science and of the world which 

 will in future be called the beginning of the age of electricity. 



The feeble attraction of the amber has become a mighty force, which 

 is destined to make itself felt, and it is to be hoped that our mutual in- 

 tercourse in this Club may aid us all in our efforts to make an impress 

 on its future history. 



