The Gifts of Science 135 



encounter. The discovery and application of power men 

 say is practical; but as it now appears such, practicality 

 is but an incident. It is our own high thinking that is 

 practical. "Who telleth one of my meanings is master 

 of all I am. ' ' And so man becomes at last the l ' mouth- 

 piece and interpreter " of nature, and while the stars in 

 their courses serve him, he alone may hear and lend sig- 

 nificance to their eternal song. 



And now, ladies and gentlemen, here assembled, it is 

 my privilege to announce this beautiful hall formally de- 

 voted to the purpose for which it has been planned. I 

 dedicate it to the use of these professors of science, who 

 in patience have so eagerly watched its rising walls and 

 whose convenience it must so admirably subserve ; I ded- 

 icate it to the students of the University of South Da- 

 kota; to those present and to those to come, that it may 

 be to them the convenient means of obtaining ever new 

 and higher views of the ' * great truths of nature and the 

 laws of her operation, ' ' ever new and higher inspiration 

 from a personal contact with the truth; I dedicate it to 

 the people of this great commonwealth, whose liberality 

 this day reaches fullest consummation, to them and to 

 their children, that the work done within these walls may 

 make for spiritual uplift, for the perpetual intellectual 

 life and saving of this State, in influence wide as these 

 limitless prairies, in beneficence rich as the recurring 

 harvests of all these fertile plains. 



