ANNUAL ADDRESS. XXIX. 



giving her people as a whole an opportunity that might 

 otherwise not have offered itself again for generations, of 

 escaping from a tyrannical bondage and becoming actually 

 the great nation they are potentially. And not less is it a 

 benefit to Japan, testing her qualities, proving her powers, 

 enlightening the minds of the people, and confirming them 

 in the wisdom of their long preparation, and still further 

 preparing them for their great destiny. 



Further, will anyone lightly deny that looked at from a 

 national point of view, one of the most bracing experiences 

 that could befall us as a people would be the presence of 

 an enemy at our gates. Nothing could more quickly reduce 

 matters to the basis of a reality they at present lack. 

 Nothing would more readily convince that large and possibly 

 major section of the community whose ideal may be not 

 unjustly stated in the motto, " Sport for Sport's sake," that 

 especially in a democracy such as this, national success 

 can be achieved only through the responsible and deliberate 

 efforts of the citizens. 



THE ART OF INVENTION. 



It may seem on casual consideration that it is a matter 

 of small moment whether (so long as a worker perform his 

 labour faithfully), he works with pleasure and zest in the 

 task, or merely as a means to subsequent amusement, but 

 this argument will not bear close examination. Professor 

 Reuleaux, one of the greatest of all the German engineer- 

 ing educators, has shown in an admirable passage that the 

 process of invention, and of industrial discovery is not, as 

 is popularly supposed, a haphazard matter. Inventions 

 rarely come as flashes of intuition or as accidents, but are 

 the results of long cogitation and rumination, and this none 

 the less so because the inventor subsequently is not him- 

 self always conscious of the various steps by which he 

 arrived at the result. Now these processes of thought are 



