1 68 Life of Count Rumford. 



four full years at Munich before he ventured to put on 

 trial either of the great reforms, or to initiate either of 

 the great institutions, which he had been quietly plan- 

 ning. The pay of the soldiers being but threepence 

 a day, their arms, clothing, and quarters being of the 

 meanest sort, yet involving wasteful expense, and the 

 system of tactics and discipline being unnecessarily 

 burdensome, as well as inefficient, he made reform in 

 these matters the object of his most earnest efforts. 

 The officers, who regarded themselves as the owners of 

 the common soldiers, as if themselves masters of slaves, 

 were likely to withstand all innovations. Thompson 

 showed a marvellous tact in winning some of the least 

 indifferent of these officers to co-operate with him in a 

 way which seemed to indicate that they themselves were 

 instigating a reform. There was a foundry for cannon 

 at Mannheim, and here Thompson made some of his 

 first experiments on heat. He built another foundry 

 at Munich, with greatly improved machinery. 



We are to remember, while recognizing the subjects 

 and the methods of his economical reforms, that, when 

 pursuing them, he never failed to aid them all by his 

 severest scientific experiments. 



Though, when we come shortly to sketch some of the 

 more remarkable results of these four years of prepara- 

 tion in the Institutions established by him in Bavaria, 

 we might suppose that the work had been necessarily so 

 absorbing that Thompson must have given over his 

 favorite philosophical pursuits, we must set this infer- 

 ence aside. Science and philosophy, in his view, lay at 

 the foundation of all reformatory, economical, and 

 benevolent enterprises, however homely the matters 

 which they concerned. In all the Institutions which he 



