November ^8, 1-902.] 



SCIENCE. 



849 



Unless an educated man can perform some 

 service for humanity better than he could 

 have done without training, then to this 

 extent education is useless. It has been 

 said education often spoils a boy. Quite 

 true. Food often kills. Water carries 

 germs of disease and death and destroys 

 thousands. Yet food and water are neces- 

 sities. Because education often proves 

 powerful for evil is no reason for opposing 

 it. "What crimes have been committed in 

 the name of liberty! What sins in the 

 name of religion ! It is too late in the 

 progress of the world to declare against the 

 higher education for this reason, either in 

 its purpose or in its results. 



George Sand fifty years ago discussed 

 this siipposed tendency of science to harden 

 the heart and blunt the sensibilities. Pol- 

 lowing is a colloquy between Jean Valreg 

 and the author : 



Jean Valreg.— "It [society] seeks in 

 science applied to industry the 'kingdom 

 of the earth' and it is en train to acquire 

 it. Do you believe then that all these 

 great efforts to know, of invention and 

 activity by which the present age shows 

 its riches and manifests its power will 

 render it happier and stronger? As for 

 myself I doubt it. I do not find the true 

 civilization in the improvement of ma- 

 chines and in the discovery of processes. 

 The day when I learn that every cottage 

 has become a palace, I shall pity the human 

 race if that palace covers only hearts of 

 stone." 



George Sand.— "Yon are both right and 

 wrong. If you take the palace filled with 

 vices and excesses as the aim of hiunan 

 labor, I am of your- opinion, but if you 

 regard the common welfare as the neces- 

 sary way to reach intellectual health, and 

 the development of the great moral virtues, 

 you would not curse this fever of material 

 progress which tends to deliver man from 



the ancient servitude of ignorance and 

 misery. ' '* 



Among the useful sciences none com- 

 pares with chemisti'y in nearness to human 

 needs and in ability to supply them. We 

 have already seen what an important ad- 

 junct it is in the study of other sciences. 

 Equally potent is it in its relations to 

 the useful arts. Many standards may be 

 used in measuring the progress of a nation 

 and its relative position in respect of other 

 countries. Some would gauge its progress 

 Ijy its churches; some by its schools; some 

 by the liberties of the people; and some 

 by the reverence paid its women. I have 

 often said, to descend to more material 

 things, that • the most reliable, rule with 

 which to measur.e the progress of a people 

 is the quantity of sugar and soap it con- 

 sumes. Sugar and soap are only illustra- 

 tions of what the chemical arts have done : 

 for man. 



There is scarcely an art into which chem- 

 istry does not enter. Iron and steel are 

 chemical products; so are paper, pens and 

 inks. Textile fabrics and their dyes owe 

 almost everything to chemical science. In 

 nearly all the manufacturing arts chemistry 

 is the chief factor. In the agricultural 

 arts it is the dominant science. In Kansas 

 chemistry has developed the deposits of 

 coal, of oil and gas, of gypsum and building 

 stones, of materials for the mamifacture 

 of cement. Here in this university has 

 been made a careful study of your mineral 

 waters which cannot fail to bring ma- 

 terial profit to your people. The wonder- 

 ful fertility of your fields has heretofore 

 shown little need of chemical study, but 

 you should not lose sight of the fact that 

 the continued prosperity and advancement 

 of agriculture must depend largely on 

 chemical investigations. The conservation 

 and increase of plant food, looking to an 

 increasing yield of crops, must condition 



*'La Daniella,' Vol. I., pp. 13-14. 



