icted by logical
weapons, may be as deep as a well and as wide as a church door, but
beyond shedding a few drops of ichor, celestial or otherwise, he is no
whit the worse. So, if any of these opponents be left, I will not
waste time in vain repetition of the demonstrative evidence of the
practical value of science; but knowing that a parable will sometimes
penetrate where syllogisms fail to effect an entrance, I will offer a
story for their consideration.

Once upon a time, a boy, with nothing to depend upon but his own
vigorous nature, was thrown into the thick of the struggle for
existence in the midst of a great manufacturing population. He seems
to have had a hard fight, inasmuch as, by the time he was thirty years
of age, his total disposable funds amounted to twenty pounds.
Nevertheless, middle life found him giving proof of his comprehension
of the practical problems he had been roughly called upon to solve, by
a career of remarkable prosperity.

Finally, having reached old age with its well-earned surroundings of
"honor, troops of friends," the hero of my story bethought himself of
those who were making a like start in life, and how he could stretch
out a helping hand to them.

After long and anxious reflection this successful practical man of
business could devise nothing better than to provide them with the
means of obtaining "sound, extensive, and practical scientific
knowledge." And he devoted a large part of his wealth and five years
of incessant work to this end.

I need not point the moral of a tale which, as the solid and spacious
fabric of the Scientific College assures us, is no fable, nor can
anything which I could say intensify the force of this practical answer
to practical objections.

We may take it for granted then, that, in the opinion of those best
qualified to judge, the diffusion of thorough scientific education is
an absolutely essential condition of industrial progress; and that the
college which has been opened to-day will confer an inestimable boon
upon those whose livelihood is to be gained by the practice of the arts
and manufactures of the district.

The only question worth discussion is, whether the conditions, under
which the work of the college is to be carried out, are such as to give
it the best possible chance of achieving permanent success.

Sir Josiah Mason, without doubt most wisely, has left very large
freedom of action to the trustees, to whom he proposes ultimat