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which is not prohibited nor reserved, if it seem appropriate. With such 
exceptions only it has been considered right, in performing what is 
clearly authorized, to summon to the public cause all suitable aid and 
powers, whether in nature, the sciences, or the arts ; whether humble or 
high ; whether using the stone-cutter and carpenter, to give us shelter 
and erect our fortifications and vessels of war ; or the statuary and painter, 
to excite gratitude, patriotism, and emulation ; or the geologist, to ascer- 
tain our minerals ; or the astronomer, to measure our boundaries and 
coasts; or the historian, jurist, and political economist, to enlighten 
our legislators and judges, by their writings, as well as the executive de- 
partments in the performance of some of their difficult public func- 
tions. But in many collateral matters, however useful to government, 
no special interference by public favor has been found necessary to sti- 
mulate private enterprise in the advantageous applications of science, 
unless particular States have done it by rewarding such inventions as 
Whitney’s cotton gin, and such geological and agricultural surveys as 
Eaton’s or Jackson’s, tending so manifestly to advance great general in- 
terests. In most of these cases the improvements have been so beneficial 
to individuals, that private patronage has proved a sufficient excitement, 
in addition to the ordinary purchase or employment of them by the 
Government, whenever well suited to supply its wants, as they have 
been sometimes in new uses of old materials, like iron, employed for the 
hulls of vessels ; or new applications of chemical substances, to preserve 
old materials, like wood, from dry rot ; or new changes in the form of 
vessels, so as to sail faster, hold more, or stow better ; or new securities 
in life-boats, chain cables; or pumps, blocks, and cordage, improved by 
scientific discoveries. All these, and hundreds of others, to cheapen 
clothing and rations for our troops, and reduce the cost of various public 
supplies, both manufactured and agricultural, benefit every log-cabin as 
well as the Government. And their usefulness in private life has alone 
been usually quite sufficient to draw forth to their aid, with wonderful 
success, the powerful instrumentality of science. 
Such, then, having been some of the past efforts and improvements of 
our people through the aid of science, and some of the encouragements 
extended to it here, both in public and private life, what lesson, what 
conviction, should they teach ? What duty does the whole inculcate in 
this respect hereafter ? Certainly to feel encouraged, by the past, to 
trope for more in future, and to attempt more in all appropriate ways. 
These, in my opinion, should be, not by changing the equal privileges 
