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Physical Sciences. 



meaning in every old myth, it might seem that these wonders of the 

 Arabian Nights were dim prophecies of the marvels performed by 

 modern science. Some of the physical sciences stand like Titans 

 ready to wield a power that braids iron bars like straw and moves 

 with a single stroke of the piston a thousand ponderous wheels. They 

 train the lightning for a servant, and from dull clods bring out colors 

 that vie with the rainbow in its glory. They reveal the past history 

 of the globe, read from the leaves of stone the history of the world 

 from the ages when the old Silurian seas rolled over the Empire State 

 till the present day, unlocking the caves of the earth, revealing the 

 gold and silver in a thousand hills and the coal and iron that, as 

 physical agents, rule the world. They have revealed the laws of 

 vegetable and animal life, making the flowers we cultivate more beau- 

 tiful, the fruits more delicious, the herds in our fields more prolific 

 and even the rivers, lakes and the ocean itself to teem with more 

 abundant life, for the delight and support of man. If one would be 

 impressed with the service of the physical sciences, let him pass 

 through the streets and business centers of this city or any other in 

 our land. He need not visit the observatories to view the Avonders 

 of the heavens, nor the halls of science where strange and wonderous 

 forms are embalmed in stone, but in the products of the marts, in the 

 furnaces that pour out molten iron, in the boats that defy wind and 

 tide, in fruits and flowers that have gained deliciousness and beauty in 

 our own time, will he see something of the wonders physical science 

 has wrought for man. Or go to the great Centennial Exhibition and 

 see the products which science has gathered from the earth, and the 

 power and skill by which these products are fashioned into forms for 

 use and beauty. No dreams of the old Arabian Nights surpass the 

 marvels of this scientific age. These physical sciences arc both the 

 products and promoters of the modern civilization. In human prog- 

 ress, action and reaction are in the same direction, the exact opposite 

 of mere mechanical law. While human progress seems at first sight 

 to rest on physical science, the human mind must construct science, 

 and therefore must ever move on before it in its highest activity. The 

 sciences in their perfection simply mark the pathway of the human 

 mind, as the dead coral, with its cells and rays, marks the growing 

 pathway of the coral polyp, or as the builder stands upon the course 

 of granite which his own hands have laid, to rear still others for the 

 completion of his work. It is useless to plan and labor for the prog- 

 ress of science while we neglect the careful training of the human 

 mind, the instrument through which all these wonders have been 

 achieved — wonders that will cease to multiply the very day men 

 become content with mere practical science, and shut out the scientific 



