Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1892-12-08
SCIENCE AND MECHANICS.
The Greatest Success and Trucst Useful.
ness Fo lnd IN These Fields

rho Greatest Success and Truest Useful.
ness Foand IN These Fields
This is minently the age of ply.
steal science, Of machinery, electricity
and chemistry. These wonderful agen-
cies are enabling the human race to-
day I'd realize the wild dream of that
ancient period when men were sup
posed to be able to WELD the powers of
magic and TO command the genii and
afritcs that presided over the forces of
nature and had custody of their hidden
treasures We do not possess Aladdin's
lamp, nor do we seek to unfold the
secrets of the "elixir of life" and the
philosophers stone,n but we work
with Our science wonders more aston
ishing and vastly more valuable than
were ever attributed to ancient magic.
When we consider that the potenti-
alities of science are merely in their
infancy we are brought to realize that
the greatest sphere of usefulness and
profit possible for human intelligence
is in the study and calculation of the
secrets of machinery, electricity and
chemistry. Not only are there enor-
nous possibilities of pecuniary profit in
II, but there is fame, too. With the
greatest respect for the legal profess
sion, it is doubtful if there is lawy err
in the whole world whose name is as
widely known rs that of Edison, the
electrician, or that of Watt, the steam
engineer, or those of Lavoisier, Davey
and Faraday, chemists.
But what has been done in these
branches of science is but suggestion
of what is to be done. The telegraph,
the monograph, electric illumination
and propulsion are the loose ends of
problems of industrial economies
of the most far-renching power
and stupendous Importance. The
secrets of chemistry so far as
they have been developed, have exer-
cised an enormous influence on hui
man progress. The refining of all
crude medical and food products, the
publication of oils and metals, the dis
covery of dyestuffis, the compromising
OF explosives, the elaboration of meth
DDS of analysis by which the compost
ton of all substances may be ascer-
tanned and distinguished and poisons
detected or their effects counteracted,
are splendid achievements, but they
only indicate how much more is to be
done. As for machinery, that is the
visible and practical agency through
which the manifold forces of electricity
and chemical affinity manifest their
power and work their will. Every
step in human progress demands new
machines.
1T is plain then that the mechanician,
the chemist and the electrician are now
charged with developing all the great
problems Of the material progress of
the human race. For the performance
of their responsible duties, the highest
intelligence, the keenest perceptions,
the steadiest nerves. the most honora-
BILE principles, the most unremitting in
dustry and the most active enterprise
are required. The men who are to be
great in science must be men in every
sense. The fathers who are truly So
licitous of the success of their sons, the
sons who are ambitious of true useful
ness and real greatness, will choose the
paths of science rather than those OF
overcrowded professions. IN. o. Plea
yune.