6 THOMPSON YATES LABORATORIES REPORT 
needs, the comforts, luxuries of mankind. It is this work which commonly to the popular idea 
represents the whole of science, or all of it that is ' useful,' to the world. The practical monuments 
of this work are often so astounding to those ignorant of the steps by which they have been reached, 
that they distract the public attention from the less obviovis and profounder business of original 
research. Our nation often called ' practical ' is rightly proud of the epithet. But it is a title 
given not free from the suspicion that we at the same time fail in the theoretical, and not 
infrequently contemn it. We do so foolishly. We do so at our peril. Behind all practical 
applications there is a region of intellectual action to which, though our practical men have 
contributed little, they owe tiie whole of their supplies. ' Other men have laboured, but ye are 
entered into their labours.' Theory may be a goose, but she lays the golden eggs. To speak 
of theoretic knowledge slightingly is for the lips of the fool. To do so harms studies whence not 
only intellectual gain, but the industrial arts have sprung, though from them the rising genius of 
this country is frequently so flippantly advised away. The great Pasteur, speaking of the over- 
throw of his country by its rival, spoke like a statesman when he said, 'Few persons comprehend 
the real origin of the marvels of industry and of tlie wealth of nations. I need no further proof 
of this than the employment, more and more frequent in official language and in writing of all 
sorts, of the erroneous expression applied science. The abandonment of scientific careers by men 
capable of pursuing them was recently deplored in the presence of one of our Cabinet Ministers of 
great talent. This statesman endeavoured to show that we ought not to be surprised at or to 
lament this result, because in our day the reign of theoretic science yields place to that of applied 
science. Nothing can be more erroneous than this opinion ; nothing, I venture to say, more 
dangerous even to practical life than the consequences which might flow from these words. 
They bide with me as proof of the imperious necessity for our reform in higher education. 
There exists no category of the sciences in which the name 'applied science' can rightly find a 
place. We have science and the applications of science, which are one growth, united together even 
as tlie tree is with its fruit.' 
The truth of this utterance is as supreme as its conviction. Nor can words better show 
how the place given to the applier of science for man's uses, although third in the series of 
priesthood of knowledge, is coequal with its predecessors, the investigator and teacher, in honour 
and humanitarian worth. The patentee and the skilled technical specialist require to the full the 
theoretic training of their compeers. Hence it is that the proper hearth for them is that where 
in a University the sacred flame of learning is fed from many sides by many hands. The words 
of Pasteur furnish ample answer to the anxious parent who explains that he does not wish his son 
to spend life's precious days in ' learning oxygen and hydrogen,' but simply to ' do copper.' 
Finally, for what uses are the Laboratories the generosity of Mr. Thompson Yates has 
given to this College ? They will assist in training men for various honourable callings, especially 
for that most ancient one of Medicine. They will assist no doubt also to render our life, by the 
technical applications of science, superficially still more different from what it was no more than a 
generation ago. Their highest office, however, is not these, but a more difficult. Genius cannot, 
by any community, however wealthy and powerful, be made to order : in Biblical language it is 
