42 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



necessary to keep all household machinery in good order, and 

 so be saved from much vexation. 



But some one may say, the difficulty is not so much in needed 

 facilities, as in the slavish nature of the work. This leads me 

 to remark, in the next place, that home science would dignify 

 and inspirit, yes, glorify the drudgery of household toil. Chem- 

 istry is kitchen work, dish-work, and dish-washing ; yet, not for 

 a moment does the chemist feel degraded or weary. The sci- 

 ence transmutes the glass to crystal, the iron to gold, the labor 

 to lofty play. The Emperor of Brazil has his laboratory, where 

 he does this chemical work. And what is all kitchen ,work but 

 chemistry ? 



A thing of science, like " a thing of beauty, is a joy forever." 

 A drop of water falls on the hot stove. The good housewife, 

 who is an unthinking drudge, does not notice it, or she only 

 says to herself — " La, sakes ! how hot that stove is ! " The 

 drop, still round, rolls along the stove and dances till it rolls 

 off. Why did it not change to vapor at once ? Because the 

 heat converts its outer particles into a cushion of steam, on 

 which it rests. How is that ? Each outside particle of water, 

 changed to steam, flies off with such energy that its recoil holds 

 up the drop. Let it roll to a part of the stove less hot ; it sinks 

 down flat and is wholly transformed to vapor. This drop sug- 

 gests a thousand wonders, and the entire amazing theory of 

 heat, as recently demonstrated by men of science. 



Hence, further, if our housewife, in her kitchen laboratory, 

 has a devout spirit, she is exalted by continual suggestions of 

 the Great Divine Cause. As quaint George Herbert wrote, two 

 hundred years ago : — 



" A servant with this clause, 

 Makes drudgery divine : 

 Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws, 

 Makes that, and th' action fine." 



And the new discoveries of science would ever freshen the 

 eternal freshness of scientific work. In beets, in tea and coffee, 

 the comparatively new metal. Rubidium, has been detected by 

 that marvellous spectrum analysis which shows us the metals 

 that exist in the sun, and in the far-off fixed stars — even detects 

 nitrogen in a comet and sodium in a shooting star. So, also, 



