320 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



tricity: as a land wliicli science, practically applied, lias 

 made great in peace and mighty in war — I ask you 

 wlietlier tliis "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 ex- 

 clusively 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 — lift- 

 ing 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. 



