114 SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION : V 



merely for the sake of the coarse and ^tangible 

 results of success._but because humanity is so con- 

 stituted that a vast number of us would never be 

 impelled to those stretches of exertion which make 

 us wiser and more capable men, if it were not for 

 the absolute necessity of putting on our faculties 

 all the strain they will bear, for the purpose of 

 " getting on " in the most practical sense. 



Now the value of a knowledge of physical science 

 I/ as a means of getting on is indubitable. There 

 / are hardly any of our trades, except the merely 

 huckstering ones, in which some knowledge of 

 science may not be directly profitable to the pur- 

 suer of that occupation. As industry attains higher 

 stages of its development, as its processes become 

 more complicated and refined, and competition 

 more keen, the sciences are dragged in, one by one, 

 to take their share in the fray ; and he who can 

 best avail himself of their help is the man who will 

 come out uppermost in that struggle for existence, 

 which goes on as fiercely beneath the smooth 

 surface of modern society, as among the wild 

 inhabitants of the woods. 



But in addition to the bearing of science on 



ordinary practical life, let me direct your attention 



y 1 to its immense influence on several of the profes- 



y sions. I ask any one who has adopted the calling 



of an engineer, how much time he lost when he 



left school, because he had to devote himself to 



pursuits which were absolutely novel and strange, 



