766 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 411. 



is to be found in all good text-books now; 

 for wherever he left a subject, there that 

 subject has remained until this day; no- 

 body has added to it or found a mistake 

 in it. He was to me a very famous man, 

 and yet he treated me as a fellow-student. 

 One of his early lectures was about flowing 

 water, and he told us of a lot of things 

 he had obsei-ved, which I also had observed 

 without much thought ; and he showed how 

 these simple observations completely de- 

 stroyed the value of everything printed in 

 every text-book on the subject of water 

 flowing over gauge-notches, even in the 

 otherwise very perfect Rankine. I felt 

 how stupid I had been in not having drawn 

 these conclusions myself, but in truth till 

 then I had never ventured for a moment 

 to criticize anything in a book. I have 

 been a cautious critic of all statements in 

 text-books ever since. If any engineer 

 wants to read what is almost the most in- 

 structive paper that has ever been written 

 for engineers, let him refer to the latest 

 paper written by James Thomson on this 

 subject.* The reasoning there given was 

 given to me in lectures in this very room 

 in 1868, and had been given to students for 

 many years previous. 



Again, soon afterwards, he let me see 

 that although I had often looked at the 

 whirlpool in a basin of water when the 

 central bottom hole is open, and althoiigh 

 I had read Edgar Allen Poe's mythical 

 description of the Maelstrom, I had been 

 very much too careless in my observation. 

 Among other things, Thomson had observed 

 that particles of sand gradually passed 

 along the bottom towards the hole. "When 

 he found out the cause of this, it led him 

 at once to several discoveries of great im- 

 portance. Indeed, the study of this simple 

 observation gave rise to all his work on 

 (1) what occurs at bends of pipes and 

 channels, and why rivers in alluvial plains 



* Brit. Assoc. Report, 1876, pp. 243-266. 



bend more and more; (2) the explanation 

 of the curious phenomena that accompany 

 great forest flres; (3) the complete theory 

 of the great wind circulation of the earth, 

 published in its final form as the Bakerian 

 Lecture of the Royal Society in 1892. 



But why go on? He taught me to see 

 that the very commonest phenomenon had 

 still to reveal important secrets to the 

 understanding eye and brain, and that no 

 man is a true student unless he is a dis- 

 coverer. And so it was with Kelvin and 

 Andrews. Their names were great before 

 the world, and yet they treated one as a 

 fellow-student. Is any expenditure of 

 money too large if we can obtain great men 

 like these for our engineering colleges? 

 Money is wanted for apparatus, and more 

 particularly for men, and we spend what 

 little we have on bricks and mortar! 



The memory of a man so absolutely hon- 

 est as Professor James Thomson was com- 

 pels me to say here that I was in an ex- 

 ceptionally fit state to benefit by contact 

 with him, for I hungered for scientific 

 information.* I do not think that there 



* Some of our most successful graduates went 

 direct to works from the Model School, Belfast, 

 and afterwards attended this College. No school 

 in the British Islands could have given better the 

 sort of general education which I recommend for 

 all boys. English subjects were especially well 

 taught, so that boys became fond of reading all 

 manner of books. There were good classes in free- 

 hand and machine drawing, classes in chemistry 

 and physics (at that time I believe that there 

 were no such classes in any English public school), 

 and the teaching of mathematics was good. Some 

 of the masters started classes also under the Sci- 

 ence and Art Department. Some of the masters 

 had much individuality, and there was no outside 

 e.^amination to restrain it; there was only en- 

 couragement. Evidence has been given before a 

 committee of the London School Board as to the 

 excellence of the teaching at this school forty 

 years ago. Foreign languages were riot in the 

 regular curriculum, but they could be studied by 

 boys inclined that way; and in my opinion this 

 is the position that all languages other than Eng- 

 lish ought to take in any British school. With 

 such preparation a boy Avas eager and able to 

 understand what went on in engineering works 

 from his first day there. 



