Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/86

82 used to enlarge human power or to alleviate human suffering. There is no fact so remote as to have no possible bearing on human utility. Every new conception falls into the grasp of that higher philanthropy which rests on the comprehension of the truths of science. For science is the flower of human altruism. No worker in science can stand alone. None counts for much who tries to do so. He must enter into the work of others. He must fit his thought to theirs. He must stand on the shoulders of the past, and must crave the help of the future. The past has granted its assistance, to the fullest degree of the most perfect altruism. The future will not refuse; and, in return, whatever knowledge it can take for human uses, it will choose in untrammeled freedom. The sole line which sets off utilitarian science lies in the limitation of human strength and of human life. The single life must be given to a narrow field, to a single strand of truth, following it wherever it may lead. Some must teach, some must investigate, some must adapt to human uses. It is not often that these functions can be united in the same individual. It is not necessary that they should be united; for art is long, though life is short, and for the next thousand years science will be still in its infancy. We stand on the threshold of a new century; a century of science; a century whose discoveries of reality shall far outweigh those of all centuries which have preceded it; a century whose glories even the most conservative of scientific men dare not try to forecast. And this twentieth century is but one—the least, most likely—of the many centuries crowding to take their place in the line of human development. In each century we shall see a great widening of the horizon of human thought, a great increase of precision in each branch of human knowledge, a great improvement in the conditions of human life, as enlightenment and precision come to be controlling factors in human action.

In the remaining part of this address I shall discuss very briefly some salient features of practice, investigation and instruction in those sciences which in the scheme of classification of this congress have been assigned to this division. In this discussion I have received the invaluable aid of a large number of my colleagues in scientific work, and from their letters of kindly interest I have felt free to make some very interesting quotations. To all these gentlemen (a list too long to be given here) from whom I have received aid of this kind I offer a most grateful acknowledgment.

The development of the profession of engineering in America has been the most remarkable feature of our recent industrial as well as educational progress. In this branch of applied science our country has come to the very front, and this in a relatively short time. To this progress a number of distinct forces have contributed. One lies in the temperament of our people, their motive force, and their tendency to