economy, or for other equally unhappy reasons, refused to support grammar schools or universities, Scotland has no reason to regret the money which she expended in supporting public primary and grammar schools, and on maintaining a university. It was more natural that Scotland with its free schools should give to the world such a cultured intellect as that of Watt's, than it would have been for any other country in Europe to have done so,-Holland-a land of heroic history, to whom Scotland herself may be regarded as indebted for her public school system-alone excepted.

It would be well to compare the puny strength of man with that of the steam-engine-to make an estimate of the money value of a single invention to Great Britain. To make such a calculation would require a vast array of astonishingly instructive figures. Suffice it to say that these figures, when summed up, would make a grand total which would eloquently illustrate the wisdom of that statesmanship which guards well the interests of high culture-which provides as did Jefferson's educational bill of 1779, that youth especially gifted with genius and virtue-as often found in families of the poor as in those of the rich-" should be rendered by liberal education *** without regard to wealth, birth, or other accidental condition or circumstance," if they so desired, "useful instruments of the public." In an able defence of such a wise policy Jefferson in his "Notes on Virginia," added, to use his own words, that "by our plan which preserves the selection of the youth of genius from among the classes of the poor we hope to avail the State of those talents which nature has sown as liberally among the poor as the rich, but which perish without use, if not sought for and cultivated." I will here incidentally say

* Jefferson's "Bill for the Better Diffusion of Knowledge," of 1779.

that Jefferson had perhaps been helped by Prof. Small, whom Scotland had given for a time to the United States, to duly appreciate the importance to nations of right views respecting the wisdom of securing to the people the far-reaching blessings of a wise intellectual culture.

Watt when endeavoring to subject to man's servitude the mysterious power which steam was capable of exerting had at times fancied that he was doing no good in the world and had sorrowfully confided to Prof. Small his sorrow. But if Watt at times thus looked upon his great work, not so, at the last, did the people of Great Britain. At his death it was deemed eminently fitting that a monument should be erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey-among the statues of many of Great Britain's most illustrious sons. On the colossal statue erected to his honor, is written, the following epitaph: "Not to perpetuate a name which must endure while the peaceful arts flourish, but to show that mankind have learned to honor those who best deserve their gratitude, the King, his Ministers, and many of the Nobles and Commoners of the realm, raised this monument to James Watt, who directing the force of an original genius early exercised in philosophic research to the improvement of the steam-engine, enlarged the resources of his country, increased the power of man, and rose to an eminent place among the most illustrious followers of science, and the real benefactors of the world. Born at Greenock, 1736. Died at Heathfield, in Staffordshire, 1819."

Westminster Abbey was not to be the only place which was to have a statue of Watt. In Greenock, Scotland, where Watt received a free education, is a library in which are books which Watt presented to the town. The visitor as he enters this treasury of knowledge sees a statue of

the illustrious mechanician which was erected in his honor by the citizens of Greenock who assuredly did not regret having maintained a free grammar or high school in their midst. In Glasgow a grand colossal statue in bronze on a beautiful granite base testifies to the honor which Glasgow feels at having been the place in which the great idea of giving to mankind the modern steam-engine was conceived.

Thinking of James Watt, Sir Walter Scott broke, one might almost say, into rapture. "It was my fortune," he says, "to meet him, whether in the body or in spirit it matters not. There were assembled about half a score of our

Northern Lights. * * Amidst this company stood Mr. Watt, the man whose genius discovered the means of multiplying our national resources to a degree perhaps even beyond his own stupendous powers of calculation and combination; bringing the treasures of the abyss to the summit of the earth; giving the feeble arm of man the momentum of an Afrite; commanding manufactures to rise, as the rod of the prophet produced water in the desert; affording the means of dispensing with that time and tide which waits for no man; and of sailing without that wind which defied the commands and threats of Xerxes himself. This potent commander of the elements, the abridger of time and space, this magician whose cloudy machinery has produced a change on the world, the effects of which, extraordinary as they are, are perhaps only now beginning to be felt, was not only the profound man of science, the most successful combiner of powers and calculator of numbers as adapted to practical purposes, was not only one of the most generally well informed, but one of the best and kindest of human beings."

Without dwelling longer on the praise bestowed on James Watt by his contemporaries, suffice it to say that

the more one reflects upon the vastness of the service which the man who invented the modern steam-engine rendered to the human race the more it will be realized that the world has reason to be thankful that Scotland adopted the wise policy of securing to her youth the blessing of something more than merely, what is commonly called, a primary education.

It may here be remarked that Watt and Prof. Robison and others had attempted to construct a travelling engine-or, as it is called in modern times, a locomotive, -indeed Watt had taken out a patent for such an invention. During Watt's life and for some years after his death, the so-called steam-carriage was but a rude, unwieldy, machine, that withal travelled at such a snail'space as to be profitably used for few, if for any purposes. One might doubt whether Watt and his learned associates ever pictured to themselves the fiery-horse of modern times a mighty industrial agency effecting a revolution in the domain of human industry,-capable of even tirelessly dragging comfortable coaches, almost as fast, if not indeed faster, than the eagle flies, between distant cities, or across continents,-doing more work than tens of millions of human laborers and horses could perform. The locomotive unites States and Territories, some of which might have remained separated forever, while others might have been to this day deserts, but for its useful aid. Indeed, the locomotive may yet be instrumental in nationalizing of uniting in a common citizenship-the people of continents. The gentlemen around whose heads gathers much of the fame of having invented the modern locomotive were George Stephenson and his son Robert Stephenson. I had prepared an historical sketch of these mechanicians and engineers illustrating somewhat minutely ways in which indirectly and directly they were indebted to

institutions of higher learning for much of their success in life. Suffice it, however, to say that the indirect influence exerted by institutions of higher culture, such as academies and libraries and universities, is sometimes even vaster and more interesting than is their direct influence. One who will trace the sacrifices made by George Stephenson to give his son Robert a high education will be apt to feel that there is a silent eloquence in the noble structure in England known as the Stephenson Memorial which, with its surrounding grounds, marks the spot where stood the humble cottage in which Robert Stephenson was born,-a structure in which youth of both sexes receive school instruction and in which there is a reading-room for mechanics.

A visitor to the great building in Washington in which are preserved the models of the thousands of inventions which have been given letters-patent by the Government of the United States, will see quite a good many simple contrivances which might have been invented-in some instances perhaps have been made,-by men or women who did not even know the letters of the alphabet. He would also see many inventions which he would recognize as the work of men, or of women, possessed of an intimate acquaintance with scientific truths. He would see surgical articles, engineering, astronomical, and other contrivances, which he would instinctively feel were made by men or women possessed in no ordinary degree of scientific knowledge. Should the visitor examine, for example, such a piece of mechanism as that of the first electric telegraph instrument which Prof. Morse gave to the world, he could infer with certainty that such a scientific invention could not have been made by any one unable to read and write. What a part that instrument has already played in the history of the world! Its work is