St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-08-24
GOV. DAVIS ADDRESS.

In his magnificent Grafton delivere at
the opening of the Exposition yesterday it
was a happy thought of Gov. DAVIS to
take advantage of the opportunity to illus
trate the superiority of the BACoNIAN sys-
tenn of philosophy. In speaking of this
system MACAULEY says, 1.-TWO words form
the key of the BACoNIAN doctrine-utility
and progress" BAcoN's philosophy was
the simplest and most beautiful that ever
dawned upon mankind. 1t is here upon
this American continent that its results
have been most brilliantly eXemplfied, and
yet we car hardly realize that less than four
hundred years ago this gigantic hemisphere,
ON which such stupendous achievements in
the progress of civilization have been ac-
eomplished, Law utterly hidden from
every intellectual and civilized por-
ton of the earth. Only three
hundred and ninety-four years ago
"a mere span, the throb of pulse, the
flight of a second in the lifetime of a uni
verse of matter-everything was here just
as it left the Creators hand. The valleys
were sleeping their long sleep with the ele
ments of future teeming harvests in their
from the plains and boarded their secret
treasures of gold and silver and iron and
coal; the rivers ran to the oceaus and the
bays and harbOrS of the coast invited the
commerce of mankind, but invited in vain.
But when the veil of darkness which had
hung so long between the old and the new
worlds was lifted, floods of strange light
poured in upon both. For two centuries
and half the minds of scientific men were
engaged in brushing away the musty fables
and stubborn follies of the ancients. Then
came the era of analysis and invention
the era which has extended to the present
hour and which has filled the nations of
earth with the marvels and glories of hui
man progress. All the mighty hidden forces
of nature have been discovered and appro-
priated to the uses of mankind. New sys-
TENS of practical philosophy have super
seded the vain and useless theories of the
ancientS. The struggle now is to make
everything useful. The humble office of
ministering to the comfort of human be-
ings. which was regarded as degrading in
the ancient schools of philosophy, is now
the proudest distinction to which man can
aIttlH. LII WAS bACQN WHO oSCaDllSlleu
that school of thought and action in which
practical utility transcends all distractions.
This age is the offspring of his system of
ideas. The lame of the inventor of the
engine which furnishes the motive power
for the machinery in Exposition hall to-day
ranks as a benefact0r above and beyond all
the dazzling blood-stained heroes of
history. The millwrights who constructed
the vast Touring mills which stand in sight
of Exposition hall have done more for
mankind than those who built the walls of
Babylon or wrought the columns of the
Coliseum at Rome. The inventor of that
humble fireside companion, the sewing ma
chine. is entitled to more veneration than
the pyramid of Cheops. AS has been truth
fully said: 1.-The discoveries of genius are
for all ages and all times; never young and
never old, they bear the seeds of their own
life" The honored men of earth to-day
are those who make themselves most useful
to their fellow men, and Gov. DAVIS sue
ceeded most admirably in impressing this
truth upon his audience yesterday. 1t was
a scholarly address, which IN every way re-
Elected credit upon the orator and did honor
to the occasion.