than the
establishment of this great university in the very focus of the
commercial activity of the West. Its connection with the institution we
have been dedicating suggests some thoughts on science as a factor in
that scheme of education best adapted to make the power of a wealthy
community a benefit to the race at large. When we see what a factor
science has been in our present civilization, how it has transformed
the world and increased the means of human enjoyment by enabling men to
apply the powers of nature to their own uses, it is not wonderful that
it should claim the place in education hitherto held by classical
studies. In the contest which has thus arisen I take no part but that
of a peace-maker, holding that it is as important to us to keep in
touch with the traditions of our race, and to cherish the thoughts
which have come down to us through the centuries, as it is to enjoy and
utilize what the present has to offer us. Speaking from this point of
view, I would point out the error of making the utilitarian
applications of knowledge the main object in its pursuit. It is an
historic fact that abstract science--science pursued without any
utilitarian end--has been at the base of our progress in the
utilization of knowledge. If in the last century such men as Galvani
and Volta had been moved by any other motive than love of penetrating
the secrets of nature they would never have pursued the seemingly
useless experiments they did, and the foundation of electrical science
would not have been laid. Our present applications of electricity did
not become possible until Ohm's mathematical laws of the electric
current, which when first made known seemed little more than
mathematical curiosities, had become the common property of inventors.
Professional pride on the part of our own Henry led him, after making
the discoveries which rendered the telegraph possible, to go no further
in their application, and to live and die without receiving a dollar of
the millions which the country has won through his agency.

In the spirit of scientific progress thus shown we have patriotism in
its highest form--a sentiment which does not seek to benefit the
country at the expense of the world, but to benefit the world by means
of one's country. Science has its competition, as keen as that which is
the life of commerce. But its rivalries are over the question who shall
contribute the most and the best to the sum total of knowledge; w