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Ie symbole y signifie "FIN". aire Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent 6tre filmds d des taux de reduction diffdrents. Lorsque Ie document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clich6, il est film6 d partir de Tangle sup^riour gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant Ie nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mithode. by errata led to ent une pelure, fapon d 1 2 3 32X 1 2 3 4 5 6 4—^ SCHOOL OF PRACTICAL SCIENCE, PROVINCE OF ONTARIO. Fmirth Session, 1881-188S. ON THE PRACTICAL USES OF SCIENCE IJf THE DAILY BUSINESS OF LIFE. T^E INAUGURAL LECTURE TO THE EVENING COURSES OF LECTURES FOR WORKING MEN, (^ir> BY DANIEL WIJ^ON, LL.D., F.R.S.E., ' ' • fieHdent of UniversHy College, and Chairman of the Board of the School of Practical Science. TORONTO: PRINTED BY C. BLACKETT UOBINSON, 5 JORDAN STREET. 1881. ' W- yj;'^ 'T.~. '¥f::x l».r ■ -t^f- >:^T\1J ■ • ■■^A ■:'•) SCHOOL OF PRACTICAL SCIENCE, PROVINCE OF ONTARIO. Ftmrth Scs^um, 1S81-18SS. ON THE PRACTICAL USES OF SCIENCE IN THK DAILY BUSINESS OF LIFE. THE INAUGURAL LECTURE T(t THE EVENING COURSES OF LECTURES FOR WORKING MEN, BY DANIEL VVIL80N, LL.D., F.R.S.E., PreHdent of University College, and Chairmnu of the Board of the School of Practical Science. TORONTO : PRINTED BY C. BLACK KTT ROBINSON, 5 .TORDAN STREET. 1881. .! <''^i'>ff!P^'''''m:mrmwmimmifMimi^-iffM^n.. Jaculta of the School of J^ractical ^dencc. 1). WILSON, LL.D., F.lt.S.E., Chairman ok thb lioARD. H. J. CF/ APMAN, Ph.D., LL.D Prufe»sm- of Mvieraloyy and Oeolouy. JAMES LOirDON, M. A Profvutm- of Mathematics ami Natural PhiloKophy. R. RAMSAY WUIUHT, M.A., B.Sc Professor of Biology. D. WI LSON, LL.D Profcxsor of Ethnology. .T.GALBRAITH,M.A. \psoc \[. U^t.i^.V..Prolvsgor of Emjincering, VV. H. PIKE. M.A., Ph.D Profcssm' of Chevmtry. VV. H. ELLIS, M. A., M.B Amintont Projemsov of i hauiatry. ALFRED BAKKIJ, M. A Hccrdxry. i ON THE PRACTICAL USES OF SCIENCE IN THK DAILY BUSINESS OF LIFE. BY DANIEL WILSON, LL.D., F.R.S.E. V IN the organisation of the educational system of Ontario ample provision has been made for placing instruction within reach of all. Our Public Schools challenge comparison with those of any other land. For those who can give the requisite time, our High Schools and Collegiate Insti- tutes carry the training onward to a more advanced stage ; and beyond this is University College, with other colleges of various kinds, to complete the work for all who have the ability and the perseverance to follow it out, and win the rank of graduates in the faculties of the Provincial University. But there still remains the Department of Technical Educa- tion, for the training of skilled workmen to turn scientific education to practical account. The professors in University College include an efficient staff of instructors in the most important branches of science, and it has been wisely arranged to combine this teaching force with that of the very imperfectly equipped School of Science ; and so, by their united action, to aim at elevating technical education to a rank in some degree correspond- ing to other departments of our educational system. Already, with the large number of undergraduates crowding the college lecture rooms, and the amount of work extending over the comprehensive field which is embraced in the University scheme, with its special honour- work in all the five departments of the faculty of Arts, the duties of the college professors are very onerous. Nevertheless, they have willingly undertaken this additional work ; and hence the present scheme of supplementary evening courses of lectures of a more elementary character than those of the col- lege, destined, as I confidently trust, to inaugurate a system of practical scientific training which will result in lasting benefit to the Province. . Apart from, and yet not without important relations to some of the controversies begot by political and social changes commanding the atten- tion of all at the present time, this subject of technical instruction, and what is called science education, occupies a veiy prominent place. The providing of adequate training in the study of pure science is all-import- 6 ant ; for the practical uses ever follow in the wako of the disinterested researches of investigators whose only aim is the mastery of the truths of science. But, while fully recognizing this, the time has come when it is indispensable that some adecjuate recognition be also extended to educa- tion of an essentially technical and practical kind, adapted for all those who are in any way engaged in the application of science to the arts of life. The waste of energy, and the costliness of misdirected industry, as the fruits of unskilled labour, more and more compel the anxious con- sideration of manufacturers, men of business, and of statesnicn of true foresight. Economic industry more than ever demands the careful hus- banding of all our resources, including the grand industrial army of mechanics, artisans, and all who bring pith and muscle to the labour- market as an article of hire. The distinction between skilled and unskilled labour is an all-important one ; and one, moreover, which acquires ever new significance with the combined progress of free institutions and a higher civilization. Man is a wondrously constituted vital machine, capable of being turned to account for an infinite variety of purposes. The Roman had fashioned him into the most perfect of military machines, to whicli he had only to say, '* Do this, and he doeth it." The paintings of Egypt, and the sculptured ala- baster of Babylon and Nineveh, show the toiling millions labouring in gangs to work out the design of the one overruling will. Stone after stone was quarried, hewn, transported to its site, and piled up, till by sheer brute force the pyramids reared their points skyward, and mountains were built on the desert's sands. Huge blocks of limestone or of granite were fash- ioned into colossal columns or statues, and transported to Karnak or Thebes, to Nimroud or Khorsabad, there to glorify the supreme task- master in obedience to whose mandate the multitude toiled as mere living machines. The result was, undoubtedly, in some res[)ects grand and imposing ; even as are some of the great earth-works of the Ohio and the Mississippi valleys : the product, too, of toiling multitudes, yet also embodying in their geometrical structure the evidence of an intelligent overruling will. The ruined temples of Egypt still attest what a marvel- lous machine man is, when set to work as no other machine can be : a vital organism, animated by intelligent volition, while subordinated to another intellect, for purposes beyond its own highest conceptions. But the problem which modern civilization has set before it, is to make each man the skilled labourer working intelligently in obedience to his own volition ; or in co-operation, like the ingenious architects of the beehive or the ant-hill, for some worthy end. Daily we suffer from unskilled labour: in ventilation, lighting, heating ; in the work of the plumber, the gasfitter, the drainer, the builder. Churches and lecture-halls are built in which we cannot hear, and dwellings in which we cannot safely reside. V' v But knowledge grows, as it has ever done, as the true handmaid of freedom. It was so in the old days of Hellenic liberty, and among the free craftsmen of Florence and Genoa, in the period of the great Italian Republics. It promises once more to be so amid the ampler freedom which we here enjoy. The skilled artisan may well be encouraged when he recalls in how many cases it has been to men of his own order, with few, if any, advan- tages of training or culture, — dependent for the most part on self-help, — that we have been indebted for discoveries of highest practical value : from Stephenson, the Newcastle collier ; or Franklin, the printer's appren- tice, to Faraday — gi-eatest of modem electricians, — a mere journeyman bookbinder. But however welcome such exceptionally-gifted workers must ever be, what we now aim at encouraging is such a widely diffused knowledge of practical science among our workingmen as shall react in all ways in its application to the ordinary requirements of daily life. Among the evidences of a growing demand for the intelligent adaptation of know- ledge to practical uses, a special prominence must be given to the Tech- nological Colleges, the Schools of Practical Science, the Agricultural Colleges, and kindred institutions. To those are being added in the great centres of industry. Economic and Industrial Museums, such as the richly furnished galleries of the South Kensington Museum, the Indus- trial Museums of Edinburgh and Dublin, and kindred institutions in the commercial capitals of the Old and New World. Those truest schools of the people are the practical outgrowth of the International Exhibition of London in 1851, and of subsequent industrial competitions : from that first, and in many respects most striking of all the so-called Crystal Palaces, to the famous Centennial gathering at Philadelphia in 1876. The Palace itself — the model of all subsequent palaces of art, and the inaugu- rator of an entirely new style of architecture, adapted to the wants and to the achievements of the age, — was, as will be remembered, the device of no trained architect, but of John Paxton, the gardener, whose impromptu sketch on a sheet of blotting paper solved the problem, and gave new life to the movement. Wise and far-sighted statesmen are awakening to the value of the vast, though too frequently wasted, power at the nation's disposal in the millions specially designated as its working men : the industrial armies of civiliza- tion. When, indeed, the first of those great international gatherings was in progress, sanguine philanthropists flattered themselves with the dream of universal peace. Nations were no longer to "murmur, snarling at each other's heels." The armed hosts of Austria and Russia, of France and England, were to beat their swords into ploughshares ; and, marshalled under true Captains of Industry, were to labour thenceforth for the com- mon good. Punch repointed his caustic pencil, and gracefully imperson- \ :}\ ated Peace in angelic guise, seated on a disused Parrot gun, the touch-hole of which she guarded with her mantle. Vrai' was to be thenceforth recognized in its true light as an insane and brutal furor. Tlio common sense of mankind was to hold a fretful world in awe ' ' Till the war-drum throb no longer, And the battle-flags were furled In the parliament of men, The federation of the world." How little, indeed, of the seor is there in our wisebt previsions! The years that followed the inauguration of this fancied international Temple of Peace, have witnessed the Crimean War, die Indian Mutiny, the great American fratricidal strife of North and South, the Russo-Turkish War, the Franco-German vVar, the victorj' of Sadowa, th 3 capitulation of Sedan. Art and science have indeed triumphed, but too f-eciuently only as enlisted in the service of the N\'ar God : contending witli ^ erverse ingenuity in devising rival Krupp, Armstrong and Gatling guns, electric tubes, Palliser shells, Moncrief gun carriages, breech-loaders, mitrailleurs, and the like inge- nious devices for wholesale slaughter, until a new hope of peace dawns on the perplexed mind from the very perfection of such deadly engines of war. In all this we see, as it were, the perverse application of ever-grow- ing knowledge and »cientific progress to facilitate the w hclssale destruction of life. The rude mail-clad baron, or man-at-arms of feudal times, vanished long ago ; but in his stead we have now the mail-clad war ship, cased in invulnerable steel, and armed with its battering-ram and rifled guns : strange offspring of science in the novel rivalry in which she has undertaken to forgo armour that shall be impenetrable, and to construct guns that no annour can resist ! Even thus it may bo that "the desire of all nations," — the peace on earth and good will to men, — is to fiml its unlooked-for advent ; for we will not doubt that through the ages " One increaaing purpose runs. And the thoughts of men are widening With the process of the suns." Bui, meanwhile, peace has her victories as well as war ; and in those peaceful triumphs we may be permitted to revert with pride to the part which the mother country has taken in them also. Tt has been duo in no slight degree to British skill, workmanship, and power of organization, under the conduct of men of true generalship, like the late Thos. Brassey, that the system of railway transport has developed, from its first crude beginnings in the English coal districts, fn the grand triumphs of indus- trial enterprise which, after interlacing the continents wf Europe and America with a network of railways, have revived thn lnni,'-oblitoratod footprints of primeval civilization, till the shrill notes of the loccmjotivQ 9 lole 3rth ion <^» re-echo under the shadow of the p3rramids, and are familiar to the inert Hindoo beyond th : Indus and the Qanges. This element of scientific locomotion, in all the forms in which it enlists steam p . wev in its service, is the grand revolutionizer of the modem world. The old commonwealth of Christendom, as it emerged out of the Dark Ages, consisted of a multitude of little states, or feudal baronies, standing apart, each eyeing its neighbour with rooted jealousy and distrust. Unskilled labour, enlisted in the service of some successful freebooter, perpetuated the rule of brute-force ; and ignorance, with all its attendant privations, ruled supreme. The Crusades began the needful reform. Peter of Piccardy and Godfrey of Bouillon were the leaders of enthusiastic hosts bent solely on redeeming the sepulchre of Christ from the infidel. Whatever else such expeditions to the scenes of sacred story might accomplish, they inevitably led to the diffusion of knowledge and an enlargement of international relations ; to an interchange not only of commodities, but of ideas. The simple aim of the devout Crusader gave way ere long to the pride of knight-errantry and the love of adventure; end this was folltowed by the more practical aims of commerce. Before the discovery of America, the great trade of the civilized world consisted in the interchange of the products of southern Asia with Europe through the centres of commerce in the Levant. Tyre, once the mistress of the world's commerce, and the chief seat of commercial and manufacturing industry, perished; Alexandria in its turn gave way ; Constantinople flourished for a time as the great mart of interchange between the East and the West, but it too sank Into decay ; while the grand crusading armaments called forth the energy and maritime skill of the northern Italian seaports, from which in time grew up those great centres of intelligent industry of the Middle Ages r the reppblics of Genoa and Venice ; and that later Athens of old Europe, the Florence of Dante and Giotto, of Lorenzo Ghiberti, Michael Angelo, Benvenuto Cellini ard Galileo. Little states, inferior in extent to the smallest of our Canadian Provinces — solely as the result of intelligent skilled industry, in the uncurbed energy to which freedom gives birth, — furnished the merchants and manufacturers, the artists, armourers, gold- smiths and bankers, and so became practically the masters of Europe. The little republics of northern Italy, with their trade guilds and merchant princes, were of more weight in the councils of Europe than England under her warlike Edward III. , or France under her keen-witted Louis XI. Tliis, be it remembered, was mainly due to the skill of industrious communities of working-men. Labour was economised by its intelligent application to the desired results. Every workman was master of his craft, and familiar with the kindred arts which contributed to its development. The stono mason as well as the sculptor was a draftsman ; the worker in 10 ~1< / I; brass and iron deemed it indispensable to master the science of metallurgy ; the potter and glass-worker were adepts in the varied requirements of ceramic and vitreous art; masters in all of the chemistry that the old alchemists had then placed at their service. There was, in fact, every- where a wise economy of skilled labour. The workman found a pleasure in his task ; and when mere unskilled labour was needed, as in the service of arms, the sturdy craftsmen, who were themselves gallant burgher- soldiers, enlisted the Condotiore to do the hireling task-work on which their skilled labour was too precious a thing to be squandered. It was a grand step in relation to all later progress when the old isolation of the nations was brought to an end, and commerce renewed the interchange between the East and the West. But what mighty changes have been wrought since the times when the voyagers from Venice or Genoa to the Levant undertook what was to them a far more formidable adventure than the crossing the broad Atlantic, or even tho circumnavigation of the globe, would novv appear ! Bacon symbolized this great factor in all advancement of human knowledge on the title-page of his Novum Organon, nearly two and a half centuries ago, by the figure of a ship sailing through the pillars of Hercules into the outlying ocean beyond which lay our western hemi- sphere ; and beneath it, in the old Latin of the Vulgate, the words of the prophet Daniel : " Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." But no better argument in favour of the encouragement of industrial science can be urged than the loss which we are constantly incurring from the lack of knowledge on the part of the indefatigable pioneers who run to and fro so ceaselessly through our own wide domain, and yet bring back to us such infinitesimal results of their wanderings. The shores and islands of Lake Superior abound in mineral wealth, and include within their limits some of the very richest silver and copper deposits in the world. They reveal, moreover, interesting evidence of the working of their mineral wealth in times long anterior to that voyage of Columbus which prepared the way for our entrance on this rich inheritance. The Arthabaska region abounds with petroleum ; the Moose River and its branches yield gypsum in abundance ; the Mackenzie River and other localities beyond the fertile prairie lands, tlie river-beds of British Columbia, and even the sterile shores of the Hudson's Bay, abound in iron, lead, copper, and gold ; the great valley of the Saskatchewan dis- closes abundant traces of the still more precious mineral, coal ; and rich seams of anthracite are already reported in Victoria. Our young adventurers who wander into that great North- West know well how to provide themselvep t ith needful arms and ammunition, stores, camping outfit, and all other accredited requisites of the i)ioneer ; but how many of them could tell gold from mica or pyrites, platina ore from ^* 11 iron-sand, or diamonds from crystals of quartz? How many on their return could give any intelligent report as to the flora of the district, its peculiar botany, or the economic value of its timber ; or furnish the slightest hint as to the geological character, or the mineral resources of the regions which they have traversed ? Their eye has been attracted, perchance, by specimens of white glistering stone, but they cannot even guess if it was worthless quartz, a useful limestone, valuable felspar, or prized mineral phosphate of lime. They are wholly unable to say whether the district through which they passed was limestone or sandstone ; of the carboniferous age, with possible promise of coal ; the bituminous limestones and shales of the Devonian age ; or the Laurentian rocks with their great beds of oxide of iron, their vast limestone strata, and, more interesting than all, their strange Eozoon, with its seeming glimpses o^ the first dawn of life on our planet. Abstract science stands far apart from the every-day business of life ; and the industrious workman, absorbed in his useful but exacting duties, may claim exemption from any special call to explore its intricate by- ways. Yet let no one give encouragement to the idea that his lack of advantages furnishes an adequate excuse for ignorance. Consider what has been accomplished by many with greatly less advantages than are within reach of the very poorest Canadian boy. I remember the great traveller, Livingstone, whom I knew in his earlier years, as a youth fresh from the weaver's loom, busy in Professor Graham's laboratory in Univer- sity College, London, preparing himself for his great life-work. You are all familiar with the name of the Cromarty stone-mason, Hugh Miller, and his enlargement of the domain of 'geological science and palaeontology, as the result of his own unaided researclies in the Old Red Sandstone, which he first worked as a poor handicraftsman with mallet and chisel. Or, to take examples which appeal more nearly to all of us than such rare and exceptional cases : Consider how much was done under every conceivable disadvantage by another self-taught geologist, Robert Dick, the poor baker of Thurso ; and again by the still poorer Thomas Edward, the shoe- maker of Banff, as a naturalist. Nor can we safely admit of the idea that any study is profitless. The relations which the abstrusest of the ab- stract sciences bear to the overy-day avocations of industrious communi- ties like our own, are the links of a continuous chain, forged not infre- quently by the sagacity of some intelligent artisan like yourselves. The name of James Watt suggests itself to all minds as the ingenious mechanist who transformed the unheeded > ?pour of the tea-kettle into a mighty force to revolutionise the world. The centenary of the birth of another of England's skilled labourers, George Stephenson, has recently been celebrated. But tlie generation has not yet wholly passed away that witnessed tlio first pnvctical application of his sagacious skill. And how / 12 I*' vast are the results due to his mastery of applied mechanics ! The revolu- tions wrought by an Alexander or a Napoleon are evanescent when com- pared with such comprehensive and enduring triumphs. In a thousand ways the steam-ship and the railway have changed the whole conditions of life. On our own continent they have converted its great rivers and lakes into the vital arteries of the Dominion ; and are opening up to millions from the old world an illimitable expanse of rich prairie land, which, but for the fertile genius of Watt and Stephenson, must have remained a profitless wilderness, abandoned to the buiFalo and its savage hunters. Yet the germ of the steam- ongiTie, as of the telescope and many another scientific achievement of modern centuries, had dawned on the mind of Roger Bacon in an age incapable of turning his conceptions of science to any useful account. It was an untimely birth. The philoso- phy of that age exhausted itself in the barren speculations of the scho- lastic quadrivium, while the artisan was a mere unskilled drudge, if not the poor serf toiling at the bidding of some scarcely more intelligent lord of the soil. The first steps in the evolutionary process through which the steam- engine at length came into practical use- may be traced in the thermometer and the air-pump of the seventeenth century. Then came the application of steam to pumps for mines ; next, the river steamer ; then the railway locomotive ; and then its indispensable handmaiden, the electric telegraph : all begot by the application of forces lying idle around us; yet only needing a Franklin, a Wheatstone or Faraday, a Watt or a Stephenson, to have turned them to the like account centiiries before. But knowledge, with the power which is its inevitable concomitant, was wanting ; other- wise the grand revolutionizer of this nineteenth century might have been anticipated by earlier generations; and for them, as it has for us, accele- rated travel, stimulated industrial and commercial enterprise, and linked together nations hitherto kept apart, not alone by continents and oceans, but by mutual jealousies, the brood of isolation and ignorance. It has promoted the interchange of useful commodities, and of still more use- ful ideas ; quickening thought, stimulating co-operation, and intensifying life, till experience responds to the poet's utterance — " Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay." Hand in hand with the steam-engine and the railway have advanced the telegraph and the newer telephone. The results only a few years ago would have seemed inconceivable ; yet let us not fancy that the triumph is now completed, and so we may fold our hands and sit down in listless epicureanism to its enjoyment. The arena for the skilled workman has not been narrowed, but widened. We,"too, may, and ought to be, among the workers, "Ever reaping Komething new, Th^t which they have done but oarqeat of the thingH that they shall do," 18 The ocean steam-ship, with its transit from Europe to America in eight or nine days, is a marvellous triumph, inconceivable even to philosophic minds within our own recollection. The period, indeed, is not very long past since Dr. Lardner demonstrated to the entire satisfaction of himself and others, that is was impossible for a steam-ship to make its way across the Atlantic. Nevertheless, notwithstanding all the marvel of its triumph, the ocean steamer, with its profitless freight of fuel, to be con- sumed and flung overboard as a waste product ere the voyage is done, falls far short of our ideal of scientific completeness, and will undoubtedly be, sooner or later, recognised as a clumsy, imperfect machine. The re- (juisite revolution has yet to be wrought by means of a condensed fuel which shall free the hold, now monopolized for the engine-room coal. The discovery is looked for which will thus double the capacity of the ocean steamer, correspondingly reduce the cost of transport for goods and travel, anfl greatly accelerate the speed of the disencumbered ship. The object has been already aimed at by me employment of our abundant mineral oils, to be stored away between the outer and inner plates of the iron ship, and so occupy space at present useless. But that idea is already superseded by the promises of the latest feat of science, the stor- ing of electric force, with all its grand premonitions of future triumph. The rivals of England have in recent years comforted themselves with the assurance that her supremacy in commerce and the industrial arts must end with the exhaustion of her coal fields ; and some among her own sons have quailed in the anticipation of such a crisis in no distant future. But long be^'ore that result is realized science gives promise of inexhaus- tible substitutes from the electricity of the earth and the oxygen of the sea. Here, accordingly, are resources which have lain unheeded from the dawn of human history and, yet all the while were as available as now for the service of man. The name electricity — first applied in its modem sense by Gilbert of Colchester in 1600, — perpetuates the history of its simple beginnings. Electran, that is, amber. It had been noticed by the observant Greeks upwards of 2,000 years before, that on applying friction to amber what we now know as electric force was the result. The test is one of the very simplest experiments. Rub a piece of amber — or, what will answer equally -well, a stick of sealing wax, — briskly on the sleeve of your coat, and then hold it near fragments of paper torn up for the purpose of this experiment. They are seen forthwith to be agitated, while the smaller pieces fly towards the amber or wax, and even adhere to it, until tlie electrical force subsides. By-and-by glass was substituted for amber, with certain important differences in the electricity thus generated ; and so man entered on the intelligent mastery of this marvellous latent force, to which we already owe so many practical triumphs of science, with stil greater promises assured. As the outgrowth of that first, and seemingly 14 •M insignificant, manifestation of electrical phenomena by means of friction applied to amber, the electric telegraph has superseded all the older methods of communicating by bale-fire, semaphore, or other process of message-sending by signals; and now adv'\nces hand in hand with the steamship and the railway, accelerating the practical uses of both in the service of commerce. Fact and fancy meet together in as strange con- junction as in "Alice's Wonderland," realising for us "The Fairy Tales of Science." In the visions of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Puck engages to " put a girdlti '•ound the earth in forty minutes ;" as again, in the romantic idealism of Shakspeare's exquisite comedy of " The Tempest," Ariel, when recounting his fulfilment of Prospero's errand, exclaims : — "Jove's lightnings, the precursors Of the dread thunder-claps, more momentary And sight-outrunning were not ! " But the realities of modem science outrival the brightest fancies of the poet ; for it has made the lightning its message-bearer, and now aims at literally harnessing it to its car. The first steps in the discovery of this novel force were simple enough. But electricity produced by friction is evanescent. Two more centuries had to elapse, and then came the prac- tical device of Volta of Pavia, whoue name is permanently associated with voltaic electricity. He had already shown that the electric spark could be employed to kindle gases, and so led Cavendish and Priestly to tho important discovery that water is not an element, Xext followed Galvani of Boiugna, who, according to the long-accredited story, while prosecuting certain physiological researches, was struck by the remarkable action pro- duced by his electric machine on the limbs of some frogs which his wife was preparing for the table. Hence galvanism, and the recognition of the presence of electrical currents in the human and in all animal bodies. Those discoveries belong to the closing years of the past century. It was not till the year 1800 that Volta devised the battery which bears his name, and so furnished the means of producing by chemical decomposition a continuous stream of electricity, fit to be enlisted m the woiM'a message- bearer, and so to open up the way to all later triumphs. But you must note in all this how much has depended on the intelligent observation of what was all the while within reach of every one alike. It is the old story of " Eyes and no eyes." And yet rather when we con- template ourselves as thus surrounded with mighty unseen, silent forces — the essential element of combustion in the ocean; the earch itself one grand electric machine, — may we not rather compare ourselves to the faith- less servant of the prophet, looking in vain from Dothan's beleaguered walls for hope or aid, until with instructed vision he could discern the angelic hosts and tho cha^iotci of fire which ^11 the while had surroitndQcl 15 3n er of he he >n- them on every side ? We too need to have our eyes opened that we may see how we are environed by a multitude of forces not less marvellous, and to learn that we only need the insight which science ofTers freely to all, to discern their true value and practical uses. How many, therefore, are the hindrances and privations to which we submit from the lack of know- ledge easily accessible to us. It is to the acquisition of this that you are now invited. Wholly apart from any immediate practical application, or commercial value, the mere pleasure which the acquisition confers is an abundant reward for any labour that it involves. But some comprehen- sion of the practical operations of science is becoming indispensable to every man who aspires to be anything more than the mere unskilled drudge. The age is one of unparalleled progress. Science advances so fast that we have ceased to wonder at ito" strangest feats. Telegraphy flashes its messages from continent to continent, and we no longer marvel as we read in our daily extra of occurrences which transpired an hour before, not in Europe only, but in India or at the Cape. Nay, more : by means of the telephone we hold actual converse with distant cities, and are oven prepared to learn without surprise of the Atlantic cable being superseded by an oceanic telephone. When we realize in all its compre- hensive bearings the revolution which has been wrought within a few brief years by this practical annihilation of time and space, and consider in how many ways it might have influenced the world's past, we may well ask what were the impediments to the earlier mastery of such momentous discoveries : not that we may thereby censure the blindness of other genera- tions, but that we may be stimulated to win for ourselves all that lies within our reach ; to enlarge to the utmost the acquisitions of the present, and so, as it wore, to ai ticipate the future. The electric force on which such grand results depend was not only as available in any earlier century as now, but it had already been brought into use in the mariner's compass. Relying on the ever faithful magnetic needle, Columbus boldly steered into the unexplored Atlantic, and found for Leon and Castile a New World. The date was 1492 ; the Old World's mediaeval centuries had already been startled from their lethargy by the shock of ruined empires ; and our western hemisphere— like the ''.^eeping Beauty of the nursery tale, — awaited but the touch of the bold adventurer to start into the life which has since then helped to quicken the Old World as well as the New. But all this was the work of skilled labour. The rude sailor of medieeval cen- turies had given place to well-instructed navigators, such as Henry of Portugal and Columbus of Genoa. They had learned the use of the compass and the astrolabe ; had fully mastered the mathematics as well as the astronomy of their age ; and applying both to the problem of ocean navigation, had determined for themselves the spherical form of the globe and the consequent possibility of reaching the shores of Asia, which lay /■ 16 B- iv^ in the remotest east, by pursuing a western route. Among all the ex- amples of scientific faith, none can surpass the unfaltering persistency with which Columbus steered onward into the imknown west, in the assured belief that — undreaming of an intervening continent, — he must thereby reach the coast of Asia; the India which he was in search of, and which he believed he had actually found when he fir' t sighted land. In thus treating of the uses of science ii\ the daily business of life, I huve purposely given a prominence to those grejit factors in the progress of the civilized world, the discovery or application of which has been more or less due to the intelligent labours of skilled mechanics or self -trained discoverers. But it is more and more coming to be seen and felt that the wealth of nations depends on the highest application of knowledge and skill in every department of industry. The old pro-'erb which bids the shoemaker stick to his last, is no longer accepted as an absolute embodi- ment of sound political economy. On the contrary, it is a very n(»ticeable characteristic of this New World that men have cast off many an old pre- judice, and, among the rest, are accustomed to view not only without suspicion, but with genuine admiration, the gifted man of humblest lot, " who breaks his birth's invidious bar." The great missionary and lin- guist, Wm. Carey, was sneered at by his clerical reviewer as a cobbler! His name ranks now among tlie benefactors of India and of the world. Yet, in a sense, it is better that the cobbler do stick to his own craft ; that each one of us, having chosen his special work, throw his whole energy into it, bringing all possible skill and knowledge to its improve- ment, and so making the very best of possible shoes, or whatever else we undertake, instead of working in shoddy and Devil's dust, and earning in the end the Devil's wages, as all such workmanship deserves, and is sure to do. Years ago, as you are aware, the attempt was made to organize in Toronto what was at first styled a College of Technology. Without adequate advice, the Mechanics' Institute building in Church Street was purchased and fitted up. But that proved to be altogether unsuitable. As you will find stated in the School prospectus, it could not afford the laboratory and other accommodation required for instruction of the special nature aimed at; and moreover was not furnished with the requisite appliances or apparatus. It became necessary, therefore, that a now building should be erected, and for this a site was given by the Uni-'eraity of Toronto, on its own grounds, and in such close proximity to University College as to admit of efiective co-operation, and a wise economy of their joint resources. Here accordingly we are met to-night in what may be fitly designated the working man's branch of the Provincial University. By the united action thus effected it was rightly considered that an economical mode could be adopted for estP/blishing an institution which, without attempting to rival the larger and more expensive schools of science of 17 Europe or of the United States, in the technical training of its students, would nevertheless supply a ««'ant in our educational system, and afford facilities for practical scientific luc&tion, with a direct bearing on the professions or occupations which the atudents might wish to follow. It , would thus, in fact, become a School of Practical Science, and as such would secure benefits amply justifying the expenditure requisite for its establishment and maintenance. Such, then, is this People's College ; it remains to be seen how far those for whom such practical advantages are thus supplied will be found prepared to avail themselves of them, and so encourage us in giving permanence to a movement which, so far as the professors of University Coll oge are concerned, must involve a great addi- tion to the amount of work already devolving on them. The aim of the School of Practical Science, as you will see by a careful ^ study of the syllabus of its courses of instruction, is to train intelligent / workmen for all the ordinary applications of skille of evening lectures which are now to be proceeded with, are not at all design "id to be popular in the sense of providing a mere evening's amuse- men ,vs is the avowed purpose of most of the lecture courses announced for our winter evenings. T^ei^ aim is to offer to the intelligent artisan, and to all other practical students, the elementary knowledge requisite to start them on lines of enquiry leading to systematic research in every branch of technology specially adapted to useful handicrafts. The know- ledge thus communicated in relation to Chemistry, Geology, and Natural History, to Natural Philosophy and Mechanics, though necessarily — in so far as these evening lectures are concerned, — elementary, will be carried so far as to be nf practical utility to the machinist, the brass-founder, the plumber, the carpenter and builder ; while it will, it is hoped, prove in some cases only the introduction to more advanced studies. Those who may hereafter be tempted to devote the requisite time to it, will find, in the daily work of this School of Practical Science, Applied Mathematics taught by experimental instruction in the laws of Statics and Dynamics, with special reference to structures and machines ; and of Optics and Acoustics in all their most important practical bearings. The depart- ment of Engineering embraces both field and office work, chain, compass, and theodolite surveys, and plotting in setting out and levelling. It includes methods of keeping field notes, determination of heights and dis- tances, of the meridian, local time and latitude, longitudinal and cross sections, setting out straight lines, curves and levels ; mensuration, in- cluding lines, surfaces, and solids, timber, masonry, iron and earthwork ; capacities of reservoirs, discharge of streams, etc. It deals with applied mechanics generally ; treats of the strength of materials, and the methods and processes of construction ; with much else of essential value to hun- dreds of the working men of Ontario. So, in like manner, the elementary »fl 18 courses of lectures on Chemistry, to be given in successive evenings during the present winter, will form a fit beginning to the medical or veterinarj' student, to the druggist, the painter, the metal-worker, and others in the study of that most useful science. Without going further, he will find that he has acquired much valuable information ; while to those who aim at a more extended and practical mastery of chemistry, the detailed in- struction in the daily work of the laboratory as taught in the morning classes devoted to Applied Chemistry will introduce them to a knowledge of the metallurgy of iron and steel, of lead, copper, silver, and gold ; or again, to the chemical constituents of mortars, cements, artificial stones, etc. ; to paints, and all preservatives of wood, stone, and iron. So also is it with the departments of Natural History and Geology. Practical Biology will embrace the use of the microscope, the study of ani- mal and vegetable tissues ; and, in the morning classes, includes Botany, Zoology, and Comparative Anatomy. As a branch of Natural History, not without some practical bearing on important questions of the present day, the lectures on Ethnology will embrace anthropology ; the special character- istics of the human skull, its bones and sutures ; structure and functions of the brain ; typical race-forms of head ; the hair, colour, and other distinctive ethnical elements ; succession of races ; physical evidences of diversity of race ; and the general bearing of philological evidence on the same subject. Geology includes in its laboratory work the use of the blow-pipe, assaying of ores and metals, with the general study of the geology and economic minerals of Canada, and the special characteristics of metallic veins and other mineral deposits. At the same time, it would be to mislead you if I left you to assume that the practical laboratory, with all the processes of the assayer and the analyst, can be brought within reach of all in any easy and popular fashion. The work is laborious, the needful apparatus costly, and only those who can give the requisite time must expect to master the processes of analysis, or be able to do thoroughly the useful work of the assayer. There is no royal road of easy, unlaborious tread to any kind of useful knowledge ; but even a little knowledge is useful, and in not a few cases it proves the incentive to the acquisition of more. I fully anticipate, however, that the course of lectures about to be given by Dr. Ellis, on Inorganic Chemistry, will be followed up hereafter with faci- lities introductory to practical laboratory work ; and in the department of Natural History the Professor has already completed arrangements for including the use of the microscope in the work of his evening lectures this winter. With the afiiliation of University College and the School of Practical Science, it has devolved on me, in my special relation to both, to introduce this series of evening lectures designed to advance technical education, and to bring it more within the reach of the working classes. In some respects 10 it lies apart from my ordinary cluties, and the work I am best fitted to do ; so that you might perhaps be tempted to recall for my own guidance the wise maxim which bids the cobbler stick to his last. Nevertheless, special circumstances long ago made me in some degree familiar with this kind of work, so far at least as to lead me to take a special interest in it. My late brother, Dr. George Wilson, distinguished as a man of science, and a lec- turer of rare ability, occupied the first chair of Technology founded in any British University ; after having for years conducted with marked success the department of Chemistry in the Edinburgh School of Art : one of the earliest and most successful of the British Schools of Practical Science. Its influence in the training of tv'.iilled mechanics is widely recognized ; and in its laboratory and lecture-room, as well as in those to which my brother transferred his practical teachings at a later date, I learned to estimate as of highest worth the influence of such Schools of Science for the people. The institution whidi now offers you similar facilities, though liberally provided for so far, still requires iniportant additions both to its etjuipments and teaching staflF, to make it what such a People's College for Ontario ought to be ; but if the working men, in the amplest sense whic^ aat term implies, show an adeijuate appreciation of its advantages, we cam it enter- tain a doubt that it will be adequately furnished with all that may prove to be requisite for purposes of such practical value not only to this Prov- ince, but to the Dominion of Canada. Our country stands peculiarly in need of such practical scientific training. With immense public works now in progress, stretching across the continent from the St. Lawrence to the shores of the Pacific ; with agricultural and mining resources unsurpassed by those of any country in the worUl ; and just entering on the organization of many new branches of manufacturing industry : it remains tt be seen whether we are prepared to continue dependent on imported skih, or to train our own miners and analysts, our engineers and machinistf., our potters, glass-workers, and alchemists of all sorts ; and so to turn to account a phalanx of skilled Canadian workmen, marshalled under our own Captains of Industry, to solve the gi-and probler" of our young country's destiny, and to prove the Dominion of Canada not unworthy of the good old British stock from which it has sprung. It is not without a special purpose that, while aiming at directing your attention to the value of science as part of the training indispensable for the skilled workman, I have given prominence to those mighty forces which lay for so many centuries unheeded and valuoless. Education, techr/ial or otherwise, is the grand lever by means of which we can hope to move the inert mass, combine our scattered resources, and make the powers of nature subservient to our needs. All knowledge — the pro- foundest culture, the most abstruse learning, — has its practical uses. tt 20 m thouyh these may be slow to manifest themselves ; but much of thiit science wherein lies true power is within reach of all ; and every fresh ac(iui8ition of knowledge is a vantage ground from whence to win new concjuests. Once you have mastered any branch of science in its practical bearings, you are like the wm; Prospero, with his Ariel and other spirits of the elements at his bidding, each t)ne of them ready to your hand to enlist the forces of nature in the conmionest services of daily life. i'/ IV >■• 14 I'^M: "^■■:.''.f/^' ■ » . , » ■'^'-'/■.--■'. '■(