ADDRESS. Ixyii 
of science, planted within the academic courts, though healthy and vigorous, 
was somewhat barren of fresh fruit. Such as it had been in the tune of 
Newton, such, in a great degree, for a century and a half, at least, it remained. 
But to other than mathematical science, I believe I may say at either Uni¬ 
versity. encouragement there was little or none. If now and then a pro¬ 
fessor was to be found whose title promised something of the kind, on ap¬ 
proaching bun you would fiud that his existence was little more thuu nominal; 
that his courees were not frequented, even if they were offered,— or if ut all, 
only by those who were considered rather as the idle men; because success 
in them was not only no advantage in the University career, but, by the time 
which they abstracted from the rewarded studies, was a positive lose and ob¬ 
struction in the way of the honours and emoluments of the place. So that 
n might fairly be said, that ifany advance was made in such sciences, at least in 
the Universities of England, it was rather in spite of, than by reason of, the 
system pursued in those otherwise useful, noble and magnificent institutions. 
In Scotland, indeed, the extended study of medicine, connected as it is with 
so maDy other branches of science, together with the less amount of iirti- 
hcial forcing into other studies, led naturally to the pursuit of physical 
science, aud a Black and a Gregory, a Leslie and a Playfair had no rival 
contemporary names at Oxford and Cambridge. The names of a Wlu well 
and a Herechel, an Airy, a Challis, aud a Sedgwick, of a Powell and a Dau- 
neny, and a Buck land,— alas, that he is only a uame now!— would forbid the 
assertion in regurd to more recent times. But what, meanwhile, was the 
State doing ? That State which, with its limited population ami territory, 
depends not upon the number of its people, but upon the individual valun 
ofeacli man,—not upon the number of its acres, but upon their skilful culti¬ 
vation,—not even upon the resources of its surface, however well developed, 
but upon the mines which lurk beneath it,—not even upon its mines, but upon 
alt the various aud varying manufactures which these mines give extraor- 
uiary facilities lor carrying on \ not even un these manufactures, but on the 
extended commerce and navigation, which are necessary to provide the 
materials to draw them forth from the remotest corners of the earth, aud to 
scud them back with speed, safety, and (economy, in another form and com- 
222"’ 1° the v t-ry spots from which they were derived;—in a word, 
dependent for the lull development of its agriculture, its mining industry, its 
n,l ul 1 ! Ure r rn d com ®® f 7 c * U P°" *hc widest extension and the fullest 
£ ™ of Chemistry, o! Natural History, of Mineralogy, of Geology, of 
thS ^ and Med,anics - What did the State for these 
eS.' w i,i ly - a js ° " oth “* Thcro was for a time a Board of Lon- 
of b ’ of enlarging „ nd i m p lov i ng it ,-it abolished; a Board 
S.eS^n7 ,Wh,Ch ,t,dr ° P|led; a School of Naval Architecture, which, at 
it abiilS ? narrow tecouri my, and at the instance of so-called practical men, 
Portsmmitl. tr f ,Je / r V ,,s we f e P1 P«™g 5 a School of Naval Instruction at 
the bounty . !*? n . a “? lhe f e 8l . iU sur . v ? ves » g« nt from 
at Edinh.. JhT V ^''"7’ c,r 150; - to one at Glasgow, or 304 to one 
' T 1° ‘‘y.Brant* of 100/. a year each to four or five 
MU Sr 1.7X ‘I . C ° ld of England. Thi» is, a. far a., I 
C 4 f lc ningiuliccnt Statu nf Britain did, until recently, for 
f lr Z ' h l,er if '«* wealtb, bar poarr.^ml 
we LPE h'.T'P. e«l»tol«r-U dependent. True, one advantage 
world winr'HV' ' V ! ' K I u worlli all the organized instruction in tiro 
despotism could oifer,—“ although no science, fairly worth the 
c 2 
