402 Life of Count Ritmford. 



Infinite public advantages for the learned and the 

 ignorant, the rich and the poor, may be made sure by 

 the diffusion of the spirit to be promoted by this In- 

 stitution. Good taste, good morals, rational economy, 

 industry, and ingenuity will be secured by its progress, 

 " and the pursuits of all the various classes of society 

 will then tend to promote the public prosperity." Had 

 Rumford done nothing but write the Prospectus, that 

 alone would prove him the philosopher and philanthro- 

 pist. 



The charter of the Institution passed the royal 

 seals on the ijth of January, 1800. The twenty-fifth 

 day of the coming March was appointed for organi- 

 zation under it. Count Rumford is named among 

 the grantees, and its provisions conform substantially 

 to his own well-wrought plan already described. The 

 ordinances, by-laws, and regulations of the Institu- 

 tion, which are likewise for the most part adjusted to 

 that plan, and provide for carrying it into details of 

 efficiency and practical benefit, indicate the agency of 

 the master-spirit of the whole enterprise. Precautions 

 are taken' to guard against the influences of jealousy 

 and favoritism in its membership and administration, 

 and to hold it strictly and generously to its prime pur- 

 poses of benefiting the public by research, the diffusion 

 of scientific knowledge, and the service of the most 

 homely and economical interests of humanity. The 

 managers are to furnish the laboratory, the workshop, 

 and the repository of the establishment in the most 

 complete manner, and to provide an able chemist as a 

 teaching and demonstrating professor, and also to en- 

 gage other professors and lecturers in experimental 

 and mechanical philosophy. No political subject is 



