142 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. I. No. 6. 



sound knowledge. Thus we hear of uni- 

 versity courses in science carried on by cor- 

 respondence and completed in a few weeks 

 or a few months. The professional popular- 

 izer has been developed. He expounds sci- 

 ence from the platform and through the 

 the press ; and there is no subject so ab- 

 struse as to deter him from producing a 

 treatise on it in sixty days. Verily, it may 

 be said, whosoever hungers for the bread 

 of science may find an abundance ready 

 made ; but out of this abundance few are 

 able to select the real staff of scientific life. 

 As a worker in one of the narrow fields of 

 scientific thought, I find myself in diffi- 

 culties to-night in seeking to say something 

 which may be at the same time interesting 

 and instructive concerning a science which 

 is more than twenty centuries old, but which 

 has rarely if ever attracted much popular 

 attention. How to steer clear of the rocks 

 of obtrusive technicality, on the one hand, 

 and of the shoals of popularization on the 

 other, is, you will no doiibt agree with me, 

 a rather appalling task. Moreover, there 

 are special reasons why you might expect 

 the science of mechanics to be the driest if 

 not the dullest of subjects for a popular 

 discourse. One reason lies in the fact that 

 those who, from accident or force of circum- 

 stances, find themselves obliged to pursue 

 the study of mechanics seriously for a few 

 months in college, are wont to celebrate the 

 completion of such studj^ by making this 

 science the subject of mock funeral rites or 

 by relegating it to the bonfires of oblivion. 

 Another reason finds expression in a very 

 common notion, even among highly edu- 

 cated people, that the mathematico-ph j^sical 

 sciences are like so many highl}^ perfected 

 mills whose remorseless and monotonous 

 grinding soon converts their operators into 

 mere automatons destitute of every hiiman 

 sentiment and deaf to every human song. 

 In explanation of this notion, at a conven- 

 tion of professional educators held in this 



cit3' about a year ago, a distingaiished 

 college president said with appropriate 

 solemnitj' : — "The line AB cuts the line CD^ 

 at right angles. "Who ever shed tears over 

 such a proposition as that? " he went on ; 

 and after the applause which followed had 

 subsided he added, " and who ever laughed 

 at su^ch a j)roposition before? " 



Notwithstanding these unfavorable au- 

 spices and the profound embarrassment 

 they entail, I have ventured to invite your 

 attention for the hour to some of the salient 

 features of mechanical science, and to the 

 element of human nature which is indisso- 

 lubly connected mth this as with every de- 

 partment of orderly knowledge; believing 

 that neither the cold facts of the science nor 

 the hard reasoning of its expounders can 

 be devoid of interest when recounted in our 

 A^ernacular. 



In oiir search for the beginnings of a 

 science we look always for the person who 

 first formulated one or more of its principles 

 in a way intelligible to his fellow men. 

 The law of progress admonishes us that 

 such a person is not necessarily or generally 

 the sole discoverer, for ideas grow by slow 

 accretions and become susceptible of clear 

 statement only after being entertained in 

 many minds. But of the manj^ who think 

 of the laws of nature few reach the high 

 plane of generalization, and it thus happens 

 that the duly accredited originators of any 

 science are usuallj^ small in number and 

 scattered through a long lapse of time. 

 The name which deserves first mention in 

 the history of mechanics is that of Arclii- 

 medes. He was not only the founder of 

 the science of mechanics, but he was also 

 the first theoretical engineer. Indeed, he 

 may be said to have laid the foxmdation for 

 mechanics and engineering so securely with 

 the cement of sound mathematics that its 

 stability has sufficed for the weighty super- 

 structure reared during the succeeding 

 twenty centuries. He knew how to weigh 



