REQUIREMENTS OF SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 211 



to assail more successfully with our few hands the natural obstacles 

 and the natural resources of a mighty continent ; how to build up on 

 the area of that continent a prosperous nation, united in varied, fruit- 

 ful, and harmonious industries, glowing with patriotism and inspired 

 by religion. 



In this work we need specially the basis of a more thorough tech- 

 nical institution, applying principles of science to the material and 

 economical problems involved. This education is necessary to supply 

 the directing forces for the great agricultural, manufacturing, and en- 

 gineering improvements of the country. It is also needed as a solvent 

 and remedy for the antagonism between labor and capital. The true 

 protection of labor will be found in its higher education, and in open- 

 ing to the individual laborer for himself and for his children, by means 

 of that education, a prospect of indefinite improvement and advance- 

 ment. 



In the realm of metallurgical and engineering operations the differ- 

 ence between theoretical and practical training is, perhaps, still more 

 striking. The student of chemistry in the laboratory cannot be made 

 acquainted with many of the conditions which obtain in chemical and 

 metallurgical operations upon a larger scale. All the chemists of the 

 world failed to comprehend or to describe correctly the apparently 

 simple reactions involved in the manufacture of pig-iron, until, by the 

 genius and enterprise of such men as Bell, Tanner, and Akerman, the 

 blast-furnace itself, in the conditions of actual practice, was penetrated 

 and minutely studied. Moreover, in all the experimental inquiries of 

 the laboratory the question of economy plays no part. It is the art 

 of separating and combining substances which the student follows 

 there, not the art of making money. That education of judgment and 

 decision, of choice of means for ends which the exigencies of daily 

 practice give, cannot be imparted in the school. 



In mechanical engineering the same principle is illustrated. The 

 highest department in this art is that of construction, and in this de- 

 partment the highest function is the designing of machinery. Now, 

 the most perfect knowledge of the theory of a machine and its mathe- 

 matical relations, of the strength of materials, or the economical use 

 of power, will not suffice to qualify a man to design a machine or a 

 system of machines, for the reason that in this work an element must 

 be considered not at all included in theoretical knowledge, namely, 

 the element of economy in the manufacture, as well as in the operation 

 of the machine. A machine, any part of which requires for its manu- 

 facture a tool (such, for instance, as a peculiar lathe) which is not 

 already possessed by the manufacturer, and which, after the construc- 

 tion of this one part, would not be necessary or useful for other work 

 — such a machine could not be profitably built. In other words, ma- 

 chines must be so designed, in a large majority of cases, as not to 

 necessitate the construction of other machines to make them ; and the 



