INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT UPON HUMAN INDUSTRIES. 603 



The bow wood has one virtue, that of rigidity. By an ingenious wrap- 

 ping of hundreds of feet of tine sinew thread or braid from end to end 

 along the back with half hitches on the limbs, at every danger-point 

 the virtue of elasticity is added and you have one of the most quickly 

 responsive implements in the world. The arrow is quite as cleverly 

 conceived, for it pierces its victim, acts as a drag or log to impede its 

 progress and by its feather as a signal to the hunter in following his 

 victim. 



I am sure I should weary you if I should undertake to repeat this 

 process of thought through the endless varieties of architecture, cook- 

 ing, living, dressing, manufacturing, and going about. The story is 

 the same. If men waut houses, stoves, furniture, clothing, tools, power, 

 or carriages or boats, they invent them, spite of environment, or rather 

 by knowing and mastering the environment. As the size and shape of 

 a cast is conditioned by the mold, not caused by it, industries are 

 molded in the environment. 



ALL, ARE NOT IN THE CURRENTS OF CULTURE. 



And now, in thanking you for your patience, let me say that in our 

 comprehensive epoch, when all sunshine and all lands, and all winds, 

 and all streams, and all terrestrial phenomena, and all history form the 

 single and organized environment of every mind, it depends on each 

 nation and each individual to say how much it or he will enter into the 

 conscious occupation of this estate. Here in the nation's capital you 

 may find men and Avomen who can not read or perform any skilled 

 labor whatever, who are the survivals of long past ages of ignorance 

 and inexperience, who are only in the eddies of culture— in the zone of 

 calms. Here also are the great minds of the world in touch with all 

 culture. Between the two extremes are we, each and all, and I should 

 be untrue to you if I did not implore each one before me to strive to be 

 in the moving current as much as possible. We are the heirs of the 

 ages and do not desire to be their prodigal son. 



DUTIES OF THE FRIENDS OF TECHNOGRAPHIC SCIENCE. 



When we turn our eyes toward that wonderful piece of architecture 

 and sculpture called the earth, we need not ask in what laboratory it 

 was executed. Time and Law were the workmen. The hills are almost 

 as old as the earth, the streams of water are as old as the hills, the con- 

 tours and coast lines are more ancient than man. All the forms of 

 physiographic and vital existence are open tor our study. The ground, 

 tlie waters, and the air have been associated in the production of the 

 earth as we now have it. More than all else the earth is the "heir of 

 all the ages." 



I need not tell a company of educated students that the living body 

 of man is the inheritor ol all general biological laws. To acquaint 

 ourselves with these laws and to obey them is half the battle of life. 



