578 MODERN METHODS OF SCIENCE. 
This too often gives rise to unjust criticisms on the part of the 
press, whose reporters attend the meetings with the same views as 
those with which they would enter a learned body of scientific 
men, who meet at stated periods, with short intervals, and where 
both time and sound criticism are bestowed upon such investiga- 
tions as are communicated. 
This association, in some sense, is to be regarded as an annual 
scientific féte, where the interchange of ideas outside the audience- 
room suggests as much, if not more, stern matter for reflection 
as the communications which may be read; the minds of men 
that have been on the stretch during the year are relaxed, and 
fresh pabulum and new vigor are furnished for the coming year. 
It sometimes happens that many persons who attend our meetings 
gather erroneous impressions from them as to what the scientific 
men of the country are doing, and go away questioning themselves 
whether or not scientific societies and associations have, after all, 
done much for science; and conclude that while the men forming 
them have made many important investigations, and published them 
for the benefit of succeeding ages, it is to practical and obscure per- 
sons that the world is indebted for its great discoveries. 
I allude to this here, as it is but recently that I have seen this 
assertion made in an article calculated to attract the attention of 
the masses, and the author of that article illustrates the fact by 
citing Clarke, Fulton and Morse. Now, while all honor is due to 
those men of skilland genius, I would ask— Who gave them the 
fulerums on which they placed their levers, by which they have 
wrought so much in practical science and the arts of life? Jt was 
pure science. Without its aid Clarke’s practical skill would have 
failed him in constructing his huge astronomical lenses; it is to 
the experiments on latent heat in the laboratory of Black that we 
owe the present steam-engine, and without which Fulton would 
never have ruffled the water of our rivers nor stemmed the winds 
of the ocean; and without the scientific thought and the grand, 
though inconspicuous, experiments of Galvani, Volta, Oersted, 
Faraday, Henry and others, no one would have ever dreamt of 
making a swift messenger of the lightning. 
My thoughts on. this subject have led me to reflect much upon 
scientific training in this country, both for those wishing tO 
pursue science as a profession as well as for those desiring it only 
