Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1890-05-21
SCIENCE AND 5.INvENrIoN.
Theory and Practices Usually Develop IN
DtMerent Ways.

Theory and Practices Vsuslly Develop In
DiHerent Ways.
In oldeH times men Of science, and
especially those who have done most to
forward the growth Of natural philos-
ophy, didsnot despise manual labor and
handickHtt Galflee made his telescopes
with his own hands Newton learned
in his boyhood the art of managing tools,
he exercised his young mind in cOntriv-
ing MOST ln4enioas machines, and when
he began his researches in optics he was
able himself to grind the lenses for his
Instruments and himself to make the
we'll known telescope which, for the
time, was . hne piece OF workmanship.
LeibnitG was fond Of inventing ma
chines-Awind-mtIls and carriages to be
moved without horses preoccupied his
mind 90 much as mathematical and
philos0phicRt 1peeulatiQns Liunaus be-
came botaRi1t while. helping his father
"A practical gardener-in his daily
work. In short with our great geniuses
handicraft was no obstacle to abstract
researches 1t rather. favored them. On
the othee hand, If the workers of old
found but few opportunities for master
ing science, many of them had, at least,
their intelligence timulated by the very
variety Of work which Was performed in
the then unspecislized workshops, and
some OF them had the benefit of familiar
intercourse with men OF science. Watt
and Rennie were friends with Prof.
Robson; Brindley, the road-maker,
despite his fourteen pence a day
wages, epjeffG Intercourse with
educated society, anndq thus de.
yetoped bis remarkable engineering
faculties. While industry, especially
by the end Of therlast sceatury and dur
ing the first part of the present. has
been inxentdnR on such . scale as to
revofUttonize the very face of the earth,
science has beeIi losing its inventive
RsYers. Scientists invent no more, or
very little. Is 1t not striking, indeed,
that the steam-engine. even in It's lead
Ing principles, the railway-engine, the
steamboat, the telephone, the phono-
graph, the weaving machine, the lace
machine, the liEhtehnpse, the Manadam-
lied road, photography in black and
colors, and thoussndaef less important
things, have not been invented by pro-
fessional scientists, although none of
them would have refused to associate
his name with any. of the named inven-
lions? MenGwho hardly had received
any eduesfipa st school, who had merely
stolen the crumbs of knowledge from
the rich; men who made their expert.
ments with the most primitive means
the attorney clerk SmeaSon. the instru.
~srt-mAksF Watt the engine-brakes-
maa Stsphegs6n tas jewelers. appren-
tice Fulton, the Infll-Yright Rennie, the
masoa TelfpFdI and hundreds of others
whose names Fen9aiB HRkae~R, gere, as
NJ Smiles justly says ttthe real makers
OF modeFB etTiiiEation;n while the pro-
fessional sOtentists. provided with all
means for acquiring knewlsdge and exs
perimenttng, have invented little in
the formidable array of implements.
machines AID prime-motors which
have shown to humanity how to utilize |
ana 70 Manages the faFces OF nature.
The fact IL striking, but its explanation !
is very simple: those men-the Watts
and the Stephensons-knew something
which the sdcnnts do not inow-they |
knew the use Of their hands; their sur |
sORndings stimulated their inventive |
powersI they kaeg machines, their
leading principles aud their work; they !
had breathed the atmosphere of the |
workshop and the building-yard. We !
know how the scientists will meet the |
reproach. They will say: 1--WE dis
cover the laws Of nature, let others au-
ply them; it is > simple division OF la