ASPECTS OF AMERICAN ASTRONOMY. 99 



In the spirit of scientific progress thus shown we have patriotism in 

 its highest form — a sentiment which does not seek to benefit the coun- 

 try at the expense of the world, but to benefit the world by means of 

 one's country. Science has its competition, as keen as that which is 

 the life of commerce. But its rivalries are over the question who shall 

 contribute the most aud the best to the sum tofal of knowledge; who 

 shall give the most, not who shall take the most. Its animating spirit 

 is love of truth. Its pride is to do the greatest good to the greatest 

 number. It embraces not only the whole human race but all nature 

 in its scope. The public spirit of which this city is the focus has made 

 the desert blossom as the rose, and benefited humanity by the diffusion 

 of the material products of the earth. Should you ask me how it is in 

 the future to use its influence for the benefit of humanity at large, I 

 would say, look at the work now going on in these precincts, aud study 

 its sijirit. Here are the agencies which will make "the voice of law 

 the harmony of the world." Here is the love of country blended with 

 love of the race. Here the love of knowledge is as unconfined as your 

 commercial enterprise. Let not your youth come hither merely to 

 learn the forms of vertebrates and the x)roperties of oxides, but rather 

 to imbibe that catholic spirit which, animating their growing energies, 

 shall make the power they are to wield an agent of beneficence to all 

 mankind. 



