, forcible, free from mannerism, yet telling and often
memorable in phrase. Whatever may be the exact magnitude of his
services to pure science, he was a master in the writing of English for
the purposes of exposition and controversy, and a powerful intellectual
influence on almost all classes in his generation._

SCIENCE AND CULTURE[1]

Six years ago, as some of my present hearers may remember, I had the
privilege of addressing a large assemblage of the inhabitants of this
city, who had gathered together to do honor to the memory of their
famous townsman, Joseph Priestley; and, if any satisfaction attaches to
posthumous glory, we may hope that the manes of the burnt-out
philosopher were then finally appeased.

No man, however, who is endowed with a fair share of common-sense, and
not more than a fair share of vanity, will identify either contemporary
or posthumous fame with the highest good; and Priestley's life leaves
no doubt that he, at any rate, set a much higher value upon the
advancement of knowledge, and the promotion of that freedom of thought
which is at once the cause and the consequence of intellectual progress.

Hence I am disposed to think that, if Priestley could be amongst us
to-day, the occasion of our meeting would afford him even greater
pleasure than the proceedings which celebrated the centenary of his
chief discovery. The kindly heart would be moved, the high sense of
social duty would be satisfied, by the spectacle of well-earned wealth,
neither squandered in tawdry luxury and vainglorious show, nor
scattered with the careless charity which blesses neither him that
gives nor him that takes, but expended in the execution of a
well-considered plan for the aid of present and future generations of
those who are willing to help themselves.

We shall all be of one mind thus far. But it is needful to share
Priestley's keen interest in physical science; and to have learned, as
he had learned, the value of scientific training in fields of inquiry
apparently far remote from physical science in order to appreciate, as
he would have appreciated, the value of the noble gift which Sir Josiah
Mason has bestowed upon the inhabitants of the Midland district.

For us children of the nineteenth century, however, the establishment
of a college under the conditions of Sir Josiah Mason's trust has a
significance apart from any which it could have possessed a hundred
years ago. It appears to be an indica