Dec. i8, 1873J 



NATURE 



119 



writing, and arithmetic, and into these schools not only 

 the soldiers and their children, but also the children of 

 the neighbouring citizens and peasants were admitted 

 gratis." Military schools of industry were also established 

 where the soldiers learned useful trades ; thus the military 

 clothing was spun, woven, and made up by the soldiers 

 themselves ; roads and other public works were made 

 and erected, and the men were permitted to hire them- 

 selves out in garrison towns. Besides this the soldiers 

 were used as industrial missionaries for the introduction 

 of improvements in agriculture, manufactures, lic. The 

 potato, until then almost unknown in Bavaria, was thus 

 introduced by the aid of Thompson's military gardens or 

 model farms. One of these gardens still remains, viz. the 

 well-known " English Garden " at Munich. 



Still more remarkable was his success in radically 

 curing the overwhelming curse of Bavaria, which was 

 infested with hordes of beggars and vagabonds that had 

 defied every previous effort of suppression or diminution 

 Here again the same strictly philosophical method of pro- 

 ceeding was adopted. Human materials and motives were 

 handled precisely as we manipulate the physical materials 

 and forces of the laboratory, and the results were similarly 

 definite, reliable, and successful. The scientific social 

 reformer not only cleared the country of its rogues, vaga- 

 bonds, and beggars, but made their industry pay all the 

 expenses of their own feeding, housing, and clothing, be- 

 sides those of the industrial and general education of 

 themselves and their children. In addition to all this they 

 made clothing for the military police who took them into 

 custody, and earned a handsome net profit in hard cash. 



It is not surprising that such success should have 

 earned for him a long list of Bavarian honours and titles 

 which need not be here recounted, and that he should now 

 appear as " Count of the Holy Roman Empire and 

 Order of the White Eagle," or, as better known to us, in 

 the title of his own choice, " The Count of Rumford." 

 Neither need we be surprised that his health should fail, 

 and that in spite of repose and change of scene we next 

 find him lying dangerously ill at Naples. 



On his recovery he returns to England, and while 

 busily engaged there in literary and scientific work, is 

 suddenly recalled to Munich, which now has the Austrians 

 at its gates, and is simultaneously threatened by the 

 French. Matters become so serious that the Elector 

 saves himself by flight, only eight days after Rumford's 

 arrival ; but before leaving the monarch hands over to the 

 philosopher the command-in-chief of the army, and the 

 practical dictatorship of the capital. During the three 

 months of this supreme command Rumford succeeds in 

 overawing and checkmating both French and Austrians, 

 and saving the city, after which the Elector returns. 



This is the chmax of the great philosopher's career, and 

 now we find him a second time stricken by dangerous 

 illness. On recovering he returns to London, founds the 

 Royal Institution, publishes his essays, and then leaves 

 England for the last time to reside in Paris, where he 

 marries the " Goddess of Reason," Madame Lavoisier. 



Here the curtain falls upon all his greatness, for though 

 but fifty-two years of age, the brilliant career of the Count 

 of Rumford is ended, and the subsequent scenes of his 

 life display a miserable contrast with all that preceded 

 them. 



His biographers are evidently puzzled by what follows, 

 and painfully seek apologies for his matrimonial squabbles, 

 his general irritability, his morose seclusion, and the 

 small results of the fussy labours of the last ten years of 

 his life. My own theory is that the illness at Munich 

 — where he describes himself as being " sick in bed, worn 

 out by intense a.ppIication, and dying, as everybody 

 thought, a martyr to the cause to which I had devoted 

 myself " — was followed by chronic and permanent cerebral 

 disease, and that the gradually developing change of 

 character which he displayed from the date of his return 

 to England in 179S, until his death in 1814, was but a 

 natural symptom of this growing malady. 



Present space does not permit me to state in detail the 

 evidence upon which I base this conclusion, but I can- 

 not conclude without protesting against the explanation 

 of Cuvier, who in his Elogc states that " It would^appear 

 as if, while he had been rendering all these services to 

 his fellow-men, he had no real love or regard for them. It 

 would appear as if the vile passions which he had observed 

 in the miserable objects which he had committed to his 

 care, or those other passions, not less vile, which his 

 success and fame had excited among his rivals, had em- 

 bittered him towards human nature." Cuvier, if I am 

 right, only knew the diseased wreck of the brilliant, 

 courteous, and even fascinating " soldier, philosopher, 

 and statesman," and I suspect that the unjust oblivion of 

 his merits which so speedily followed his death, was 

 largely due to the bad impression made, not only upon 

 the French Academicians, but also upon his Royal 

 Institution associates, by the moral obliquities and eccen- 

 tricities due to a diseased brain. 



The main interest of the career of this wonderful man 

 appears to me to lie in this, that it affords a magnificent 

 demonstration of the practical value of scientific training, 

 and the methodical application of scientific processes to 

 the business of life. I have long maiatained that every father 

 who is able and willing to qualify his son to attain a high 

 degree of success either as a man of business, a soldier, a 

 sailor, a lawyer, a statesman, or in any other responsible 

 department of life, should primarily place him in a labo- 

 ratory where he will not merely learn the elements of 

 science, but be well trained in carrying out original 

 physical research, such training being the best of all 

 known means of atfording that systematic discipline of 

 the intellectual and moral powers upon which all practical 

 success in life depends. The story of Count Rumford's 

 life, and the lesson it teaches, afford most valuable 

 evidence in support of this conclusion, and cannot fail 

 powerfully to enforce it. 



This subject is specially important at the present 

 moment, particularly to those Englishmen whose minds 

 are still infested with the shallow foolishness that leads 

 them to believe that scientific men are dreamy theorists, 

 and disqualified for practical business. Let them follow 

 in detail the practical triumphs of this experimental philo- 

 sopher, and ask themselves candidly whether such success 

 could have been possible had he been trained in the 

 mere word-exalting study of the Greek and Latin classics, 

 instead of the practical school of experimental research. 



W. Mattieu Williams 



