VIEWS ON EDUCATION 209 



at its inception, so great must the advance in its utilisation 

 ultimately become. 



When Hofmann set Perkin, as a young student, to investigate 

 the products of oxidation of the base aniline produced by him 

 from coal-tar, it would have been impossible to have predicted 

 that one manufactory alone would possess nearly 400 large 

 buildings and employ 5000 workmen, living in its own town of 

 25,000 inhabitants, all of which is devoted to the manufacture 

 of colours from aniline and other coal-tar products. In this 

 work alone at least 350 chemists are employed, most of whom 

 have had a university training. 



Schonbein, a Swiss schoolmaster interested in chemistry, was 

 struck by the action of nitric acid on paper and cotton. He 

 would have been astounded if told that his experiments would 

 have resulted in the employment of his nitre-celluloses in colossal 

 quantity for blasting and for ordnance of all kinds, from the 

 90-ton gun to the fowling piece. 



But discoveries such as these, which lead directly to practical 

 results, are far inferior in importance to others in which a general 

 principle is involved. Joule and Robert Mayer, who proved 

 the equivalence of heat and work, have had far more influence 

 on succeeding ages than even the discoverers above mentioned, 

 for they have imbued a multitude of minds with a correct under- 

 standing of the nature of energy, and the possibility of converting 

 it economically into that form in which it is most directly useful 

 for the purpose in view. They have laid the basis of reasoning 

 for machines ; and it is on machines, instruments for converting 

 unavailable into available energy, that the prosperity of the 

 human race depends. 



You will see from these instances that it is in reality ' philo- 

 sophy ' or a love of wisdom which, after all, is most to be sought 

 after. Like virtue, it is its own reward ; and as we all hope 

 is the case with virtue too, it brings other rewards in its train ; 

 not, be it remarked, always to the philosopher, but to the race. 



