The Portland daily press., 1873-08-16
An Honor to onr CITY.

1t is matter of just congratulation to our
citizens that the American Association for the
Advancement of Science is to meet here next
week.
The association may be said to represent the
most advanced thought of our country. 1t is
composed of gentlemen of the highest literary
and scientific attachments, together with fair
proportion of the best read and most highly
cultivated of our more wealthy countrymen.
Probably in no other body, or anything like its
numbers, in the whole length and breadth of
our land can there be found so many of the
leading minds of the age. For, be it observed,
it is these same quiet students that, in the re-
tirement of their study or Office OF laboratory,
take the great steps forward which all recognize
as stages of progress, when the ideas evolved
are reduced to practical, tangible form.
1t is very common now, as it was formerly, to
decry and derde every idea which does not give
promise of direct and immediate application to
the industrial arts. Men are very apt to feel
and to say: Give us something practical; some
thing which will increase our wealth or render
us less subservient to manual toll; show US
something that is not mere theory and we will
adopt it ard bless the inventor. Pure science
and the painstaking, systematic search
for it present no attractions to the
common mind. And yet it is only
the man who loves exact and particular
truth, that can contribute much to the advance
ment of his fellow men. Unquestionably, he
| who takes particular truth-a particular dis.
| covery in science-and makes a practical appli-
cation of it; he, for instance, who avails him
self of single discovery in chemistry, to bring
| out new color for our fabrics of every sort
or to produce a new and cheaper material to
substitute some expensive article of manufact.
ure, has been of great use to mankind. But il
we were to go no farther than merely to apply
the material already afforded us, we should soon
come into the condition of the Chinese and the
| japanese nations, who, apparently, until quite
| recently, have not made any visible or grand
progress, for perhaps thousands of years. We
should become thoroughly sordid.S As a nation
we should certainly continually deteriorate in
! the pursuit of merely material success,
But, thank Heaven, as the case now stands,
we have noble class of men, who, content
| with comparatively little of worldly wealth
devote themselves to the systematic investga
| ton of truth; who strive to draw forth fine hid
| den secrets OF animate and inanmate creation
not knowing whittier they may next be led. but
courageOusly willing to follow into any patI
that may be opened to their view. These ar.
our advanced guard, who, though we NAV moi
realize it, as we go about our daily avocations
are stimulating us to move on nor rest content
ed with the inferior attanments we have al
| ready made These are the men who by thei
labofs so unrequited in the physical and ma
teral sense have enabled our children to grasl
ideas impossible to the men of fifty years ago
These are the men who are opening up to GU
| common gaze the grand vistas of creation, ant
who will not cease their efforts until there shall
be nothing beyond that man can explore.
Let us Show our appreciation of the nobl
gimpses of the universe, in its great who'll
| and in the marvellous perfection of its mi
nutest details; of the deep full breath of
purer, more exhilarating air, to which thes
men have assisted us; let us show our appre
citation of the honor they confer upon us, b,
| extending to them most cordial welcome
| i. G. J.