July 27, 1888.] 



SCIENCE 



45 



which till a very recent time was wanting, have established. J?ut 

 have these principles been mastered as yet by our population ? I 

 think not. Our political commonplaces, those so-called principles 

 the announcement of which sets all throats shouting and all hands 

 clapping, are in a great degree exploded in the schools. In the 

 schools the historical has supplanted the a ^r/ori melhod, whereas 

 the parly-world still lives in the dregs of eighteenth-century Liber- 

 alism. Thai impartial view at which you aim is, in fact, a histori- 

 cal view. When the party-scales fall from our eyes, what we see 

 before us is simply history. ■' The thing which hath lieen is the 

 thing which will be." Would you know what is wise and right in 

 politics, you must consult e.vperience. In politics, as in other de- 

 partments, wisdom consists in the knovk'ledge of the laws that gov- 

 ern the phenomena, and these laws can only be discovered by the 

 observation of facts. Now, in the political department we call the 

 •observation of facts, history. If this is so, how can we avoid the 

 ■conclusion that such a study of politics as you meditate cannot be 

 separated from the study of history ? 



You will allow me, I am sure, thus frankly to point out the 

 dilTicuUies with which you will have to contend. It may prove that a 

 more complicated machinery than you have planned is necessary in 

 ■order to carry your purpose worthily into effect. And in that case 

 it is, of course, possible that you may find on trial that you have 

 undertaken more than you can perform in a inanner thoroughly 

 satisfactory. Even, so your society might still be infinitely useful. 

 Its di.scussions might be suggestive, even if they should not be ex- 

 haustive ; they might give much, even if they should leave you 

 hungering for more. 



On the other hand, you may find yourselves able to give to your 

 society that further development which the plan of it seems to me 

 likely to require. What, in one word, is this further development ? 

 To discussion, it seems to me, you may wish to add methodical teach- 

 ing, and to politics you may wish to add political economy and his- 

 tory. These, indeed, are vast additions ; they would convert your 

 debating society into som.ething which we should describe by quite 

 another name, into a sort of institute or college of the political sci- 

 ences. You may not be prepared, and perhaps even it would not 

 be wise, to look so far forward, to undertake so much at once, or 

 even to indulge the thought of ever undertaking so much. But in 

 a solemn commencement like this, it is impossible not to speculate, 

 at least for a moment, to what height the seed now sown may con- 

 ceivably grow. In an inaugural address, allow me to adopt for a 

 moinent the tone of an augur. It is now seventeen years since, in 

 the Senate House of the L^niversity of Cambridge, I delivered a lec- 

 ture on the teaching of politics. Ever since that time, but espe- 

 cially during the last ten years, I have observed in different parts 

 of the country how the idea of regarding politics as a matter of 

 teaching makes way, and how the demand for political teaching 

 grows. The movement here connects itself in my mind with many 

 similar movements which I have had the opportunity of observing, 

 and therefore I think I can foresee the course it is likely to take. 

 Now observe that if you find difficulties in realizing what you wish, 

 you may get help. You want better knowledge, and you may pos- 

 sibly find, as I have said, the subject too vast for you to grapple 

 with unaided. You may come to think that you want the help of 

 economists and historians, if not of other classes of learned men. 

 Your discussions may leave you craving for something more sys- 

 tematic: they may suggest doubts which you would like to refer to 

 investigators of authority. If so, do not forget that the old univer- 

 sities are now very different from what they used to be. What- 

 ever knowledge, whatever insight can be found there, is very much 

 at your service. If in former limes their studies were too little 

 practical, had too little bearing upon the questions which agitate 

 the world, this can scarcely be said now. If in former times the 

 scholars of the universities were wrapped up in inonastic seclusion 

 and took little interest in the topics of the day. this again can 

 scarcely be said now. But you are not likely to forget this, for I 

 understand the university extension lecturers have visited this neigh- 

 borhood. Possibly, hovever, it has not occurred to you that the 

 two schemes, university extension and this Society for the Impartial 

 Study of Political Questions, belong to and have an affinity with 

 each other. We have at Cambridge economists, and we have also 

 historians who do not shun the actual times in which we are all 



living. In the extension scheme, and other similar schemes, we 

 have a machinery by which these academic teachers are brought 

 easily within reach of those who in great towns like this feel the 

 want of academic teaching. I do not overrate the value of this 

 kind of help. The time was, no doubt, when such scholastic poli- 

 tics would have been regarded with contempt, and I do not sup- 

 pose that even now you are accustomed to expect much light upon 

 practical questions from the collegians of Cambridge and Oxford. 

 Nevertheless, I think you have found out already that they have 

 something to give, and if you will only persist in appealing for their 

 help, I believe you will be more and more satisfied with the result. 

 The demand will create the supply. They will find out what you 

 want, and gradually they will prepare themselves to give it. Here, 

 then, is my suggestion. You seem to recognize already that you 

 will need help of some kind. You have asked distinguished men, 

 some of them strangers, to deliver lectures which are to be intro- 

 ductory to your discussions. I say, then, for the future, when you 

 want such lecturers, go for them sometimes to the universities. 

 And if you find, as you may do, that, on such a subject as free 

 trade, for instance, a single lecture, or a pair of lectures, one on 

 each side, is not sufficient, and rather disturbs your mind than 

 quiets it ; if you begin to see whole sciences and systems of thought 

 lying under those political questions which you have underlaken to 

 study impartially, then, I say, call the extension lecturers back to 

 Cardiff, and supplement your debates by courses of lectures and by 

 standing classes in political economy and in history. 



You see, no doubt, what I aim at. What leads me to take an 

 interest in your enterprise, what has caused me to accept with 

 pleasure your invitation to deliver this address, is that I have rec- 

 ognized here another wave in the great tide of which I have for 

 many years watched the advance. It is our part at the universities 

 to give coherence, connection, and system to the thinking of the na- 

 tion. I see everywhere how the nation begins to strive more than 

 in past times towards such coherence. I am glad also to see how 

 it learns the habit of looking to the universities for help in this strife, 

 and how rapidly the universities are acquiring the habit and the 

 skill to render such help ; and I look forward to the time when the 

 English universities will extend their action over the whole com- 

 munity by creating a vast order of high-class popular teachers, who 

 shall lend their aid everywhere in the impartial study of great ques- 

 tions, political or other, and so play a part in the guidance of the 

 national mind such as has never been played by universities in any 

 other country. It is in this hope, and as a step to the fulfilment 

 of it, that I inaugurate and wish all success to your society. 



ELECTRICAL SCIENCE. 

 The Solution of Municipal Rapid Transit. 



The paper read by Mr. F. J. Sprague before the Institute of 

 Electrical Engineers, on municipal rapid transit, is both valuable 

 and timely. In the first part of the paper the inadequacy of the 

 almost universal system of horse-car traction is pointed out, and a 

 comparison is made between horses, cables, and electricity. Tak- 

 ing up horses, Mr. Sprague says : "Two distinct methods are rec- 

 ognized among street-car men in the handling of their stable 

 equipments. In one the stock of horses is kept as low as possible : 

 they are worked hard, making fourteen or fifteen miles a day, and 

 the depreciation is heavy. In the other the stable equipment is 

 increased, the horses are kept in excellent condition, their average 

 daily duty is reduced to ten or twelve miles, and the depreciation 

 is lessened." As an exifmple of the equipment required, on the 

 Fourth Avenue line in New York, run on the latter plan, the car 

 day is eleven hours, and eight horses make about five trips, aggre- 

 gating about fifty miles. To the number of horses is added ten 

 per cent for illness, and ten per cent for emergencies ; that is nearly 

 ten horses for a car, making fifty miles a day. The average cost of 

 motive power per car day throughout the L^nited States is about 

 four dollars, counting the cost of only those horses that are actually 

 on duly. The cost per day per horse in New York is on the aver- 

 age fifty-four cents, and the cost for motive power per car mile ten 

 cents. 



The cable system has been successfully used where there are 

 heavy grades and a great deal of traffic. In this system a cable is 



