Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 59.djvu/157

Rh confirmed 'Law of Substance,' as Haeckel denominates it, the principle in nature which I enunciated a quarter of a century ago thus:

"All that exists, whether matter or force, or their product, energy, and in whatever form, is indestructible except by the infinite power which has created it."

This principle, probably as old as Aristotle, or older, enunciated by Cicero when he declared, "One eternal and immutable law embraces all things and all times;" experimentally proved, at least qualitatively, by Rumford in the latter part of the eighteenth century, confirmed by Davy, proved and quantitatively illustrated by Mayer, by Joule and by Rowland and numerous contemporary investigators, the Law of Substance of Haeckel, is itself a nineteenth century product and the basis of our whole system of energy production, transmutation and transmission, the foundation of the whole superstructure in mechanical engineering and of its wealth-production, and of human progress and higher human life.

Education in applied science and in the principles directly underlying the work of the engineer, in common schools, secondary schools and professional schools and colleges, an education which has seen as much improvement as have the arts and sciences themselves, has had much to do with the later progress of mechanical engineering, especially in the United States. Systematic instruction in the departments of mechanical engineering, such as is now obtainable by almost any young man determined to secure it, not only has much to do with our progress at the moment, but it is this phase of education, in our state colleges particularly, which is settling the tendency of the flow of the rising tide for the immediate future, and probably for all coming time. Although it has been a force of recognized importance and influence for less than a single generation, and has had a distinct and special position among 'the educations' for a very brief period, it has already done much to correct the defects of the industrial system of our country—still more that of France and that of Germany, hardly less that of Great Britain—and also to systematize our industries. The discoveries of science and the inventions of our mechanics ""furnish material to be utilized by the alumni of our technical and professional schools and colleges as they can be by no other class in the community; the scientific method of the schools and the scientific knowledge of their graduates, and the hands and brains of the new leaders of the industrial army give perfected organization and improved administration to every branch of the great economical, machine-like, modern industrial