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IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
Its mission is rather to prepare the way for a higher and better 
culture, to expose that which is artificial, and to emphasize that 
which is real. Science is the forerunner of the greater Christian 
life yet to come. It is “The voice of one crying in the wilderness. 
Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” 
We cannot expect immediate results in the influence of science 
studies in the formation and development of our higher ideals 
because much of the subject-matter lies outside the range of our 
ordinary experience. Molecules, atoms, and electrons do not be- 
long to the same order of magnitude in which we live. They are 
as far removed from us on the one side, as the stars in the Heavens 
on the other side. 
There is perhaps no phase of educational work so effective in 
multiplying, extending, and enlarging our mental concepts, as 
the study of the relative orders of magnitudes, together with the 
range and scope of properties in each. It requires an extension 
and penetration of the imagination that cannot be surpassed. The 
largest body we know anything about is the galaxy of stars above 
us. An infinitely smaller body would be an ordinary object we 
deal with in mechanics — a body that is familiar to us in our every 
day experience. Take another step downward infinite in distance 
and we come to the microscopic world where every man working 
with his highly magnifying lenses is a Columbus discovering new 
worlds. Take a third step downward infinite in distance below 
microscopic organisms and we come to another class of bodies 
definite, distinct, and as real as any bodies that we know of. These 
bodies are called molecules and atoms. It requires a new and dif- 
ferent language for each order of magnitude. It is necessary to 
make a great deal of correction for parallax in order to get a true 
conception of the various bodies in scientific work. 
Such wealth and variety of knowledge, together with the in- 
creased power of accumulating more knowledge, all of which leads 
to one great First Cause, is good material for building a noble 
character which shall endure unto the end. A character that will 
take into consideration the whole man, physical, intellectual, and 
moral. Righteousness and conscience are facts to be dealt with 
just as much as wood and stone. 
“The thermometer is not so sensitive to heat, the barometer to 
weight, the photographer’s plate to light, as is the soul to the ten 
thousand influences of its fellow men.” 
“Great is man’s skill in handling engines of force; marvelous, 
man’s control of winds and rivers; wondrous, the mastery of en- 
