Apeil 24, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



647 



give them applications that are useful to 

 man, in order that they may more perfectly 

 contribute to the support of the race. Men 

 must be educated for this purpose in our 

 schools of applied science. This education 

 can not be efficiently gained without the 

 help of the schools. 



Again, new principles must be discovered 

 and great laws deduced, and contributions 

 must be levied from them for the support 

 and advancement of the race. It has long 

 and justly been regarded a, signal achieve- 

 ment to discover an important phenomenon 

 or principle in science, and the discoverer 

 has been stamped a learned and great man. 

 It is still a signal achievement to discover, 

 but the discoverer may add luster to his 

 fame in our time by directing the applica- 

 tion of his discovery to the service of man- 

 kind, so that no undue delay may be suf- 

 fered to occur before it too contributes to 

 the welfare of civilization. These men 

 also may be most effectively educated in 

 our schools of applied science. 



The motive force of progress and civil- 

 ization at the opening of the twentieth 

 century is infinitely greater than at the 

 opening of the nineteenth; largely due to 

 discoveries and the world's slight educa- 

 tion in science ; and the possibilities follow- 

 ing great discoveries are equally increased. 

 Carrying this education of the people in 

 applied science to its farthest limit must ac- 

 centuate the progress, bringing with it those 

 trains of good that follow in the wake of 

 broader intelligence and wider opportuni- 

 ties. Every industry, every line of trans- 

 portation or system of intercom m unication , 

 every branch of useful endeavor, has prof- 

 ited by the growth of scientific teaching 

 and the work of the engineering schools; 

 and civilization, which spreads, fattens and 

 grows great through transportation and in- 

 tercommunication between peoples, has 

 been the gainer. Manifestly the influence 

 of the schools of applied science is vastly 



greater than the effect directly produced 

 on their individual students. 



Consider the growth of our own people ! 

 The nineteenth century opened while the 

 meridian crossing the center of our popu- 

 lation bathed half its length in the Atlantic 

 Ocean. Now it approaches its baptism in 

 the Mississippi. The opening of our fertile 

 domains, of which this tells the tale, is a 

 story of transportation and intercommuni- 

 cation — the steam railroad and the electro- 

 magnetic telegraph, applied science allied 

 with vigilant energy. 



Much was formerly preached of a dis- 

 cord between theory and practice in engi- 

 neering, and the old specter has not yet 

 been laid for some. But no such discord 

 ever existed except in the minds of the un- 

 learned who failed to see that it was the 

 finger of truth which washed away their 

 rule of thumb; and with even them it 

 existed only as the suspicion arising, as 

 Bacon says, 'of little knowledge.' Even 

 this phantom was laid in 1855 through an 

 admirable address by the learned engineer, 

 Professor EanMne, whose discoveries 

 added much to engineering practice, and 

 whose early death was so deeply mourned. 

 After tracing the development of meager 

 scientific knowledge and mechanical prac- 

 tice amongst the ancients. Professor Ran- 

 kine makes the following observations: 



"As a systematically avowed doctrine, 

 there can be no doubt that the fallacy of a 

 discrepancy between rational and practical 

 mechanics came long ago to an end; and 

 that every well-informed and sane man, 

 expressing a deliberate opinion upon the 

 mutual relations of those two branches of 

 science, would at once admit that they 

 agree in their principles, and assist each 

 other's progress, and that such distinction 

 as exists between them arises from the dif- 

 ference of the purposes to which the same 

 body of principles is applied. 



