is defined to be "to promote the prosperity of the manufactures and the industry of the country." He may suggest that what is wanted for this end is not culture, nor even a purely scientific discipline, but simply a knowledge of applied science.

I often wish that this phrase, "applied science" had never been invented. For it suggests that there is a sort of scientific knowledge of direct practical use, which can be studied apart from another sort of scientific knowledge, which is of no practical utility, and which is termed "pure science." But there is no more complete fallacy than this. What people call applied science is nothing but the application of pure science to particular classes of problems. It consists of deductions from those general principles, established by reasoning and observation, which constitute pure science. No one can safely make these deductions until he has a firm grasp of the principles; and he can obtain that grasp only by personal experience of the operations of observation and of reasoning on which they are founded.

Almost all the processes employed in the arts and manufactures fall within the range either of physics or of chemistry. In order to improve them, one must thoroughly understand them; and no one has a chance of really understanding them, unless he has obtained that mastery of principles and that habit of dealing with facts, which is given by long-continued and well-directed purely scientific training in the physical and the chemical laboratory. So that there really is no question as to the necessity of purely scientific discipline, even if the work of the College were limited by the narrowest interpretation of its stated aims.

And, as to the desirableness of a wider culture than that yielded by science alone, it is to be recollected that the im

provement of manufacturing processes is only one of the conditions which contribute to the prosperity of industry. Industry is a means and not an end; and mankind work only to get something which they want. What that something is depends partly on their innate, and partly on their acquired, desires.

If the wealth resulting from prosperous industry is to be spent upon the gratification of unworthy desires, if the increasing perfection of manufacturing processes is to be accompanied by an increasing debasement of those who carry them on, I do not see the good of industry and prosperity.

Now it is perfectly true that men's views of what is desirable depend upon their characters; and that the innate proclivities to which we give that name are not touched by any amount of instruction. But it does not follow that even mere intellectual education may not, to an indefinite extent, modify the practical manifestation of the characters of men in their actions, by supplying them with motives unknown to the ignorant. A pleasure-loving character will have pleasure of some sort; but, if you give him the choice, he may prefer pleasures which do not degrade him to those which do. And this choice is offered to every man, who possesses in literary or artistic culture a never-failing source of pleasures, which are neither withered by age, nor staled by custom, nor embittered in the recollection by the pangs of self-reproach.

If the Institution opened to-day fulfils the intention of its founder, the picked intelligences among all classes of the population of this district will pass through it. No child born in Birmingham, henceforward, if he have the capacity to profit by the opportunities offered to him, first in the primary and other schools, and afterwards in the

Scientific College, need fail to obtain, not merely the instruction, but the culture most appropriate to the conditions of his life.

Within these walls, the future employer and the future artisan may sojourn together for a while, and carry, through all their lives, the stamp of the influences then brought to bear upon them. Hence, it is not beside the mark to remind you, that the prosperity of industry depends not merely upon the improvement of manufacturing processes, not merely upon the ennobling of the individual character, but upon a third condition, namely, a clear understanding of the conditions of social life, on the part of both the capitalist and the operative, and their agreement upon common principles of social action. They must learn that social phaenomena are as much the expression of natural laws as any others; that no social arrangements can be permanent unless they harmonise with the requirements of social statics and dynamics; and that, in the nature of things, there is an arbiter whose decisions execute themselves.

From Science and Culture.

L

MARK TWAIN (1835-1910)

IKE many American humorists Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) received his literary training as a newspaper reporter. He was compelled to go to work at twelve because of the death of his father. He spent the next six years in the printing office of the daily paper of Hannibal. At nineteen he decided to become a pilot on the Mississippi. From his experience he gained much material for his future books about this section of the United States. At twenty-five he went to Nevada to seek a fortune in the mines. As the fortune was not forthcoming, he returned to journalism. In the Virginia City Enterprise appeared the first sketches signed Mark Twain. This name he took from the custom of calling, "By the mark, three," "Mark twain" on the Mississippi River steamboats. From the Virginia City Enterprise he went to the Morning Call of San Francisco.

In 1867 Mark Twain's first book, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras was published. The next year he took a trip to the Mediterranean, from which he sent a weekly letter to the Alta California. These furnished the material for Innocents Abroad published in 1869. The next year he became editor of the Buffalo Express. In 1871 he moved to Hartford and gave up journalism as a profession, although he contributed to various newspapers throughout his life.

At sixty Mark Twain found himself confronted with the task of paying a debt, which was the result of the failure of a publishing house in which he was the chief partner. Like Sir Walter Scott he bent his energies to this task and lived to pay the debt. Although his chief business venture had resulted in failure, he was able to save himself by his pen.

From 1871 until his death in 1910 Mark Twain was America's best known humorist. From the lecture platform and through his books he gained an enthusiastic and appreciative audience. Among his best books are Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, The

Prince and the Pauper, Life on the Mississippi, and Joan of Arc. Mr. Noah Brooks, one of Mark Twain's California associates, has thus described his method as a lecturer. "His slow, deliberate drawl, the anxious and perturbed expression of his visage, the apparently painful effort with which he framed his sentences, the surprise that spread over his face when the audience roared with delight or rapturously applauded the finer passages of his word painting, were unlike anything of the kind they had ever known." Mark Twain's humor was typically American. It consisted in exaggerating a fault or foible or in unduly emphasizing an unimportant detail. No matter how extravagantly presented, the underlying truth is apparent to the discriminating reader. As the chronicler of American boyhood of the seventies, he has become particularly dear to all Americans. Mark Twain realized that the greatest humor is based on serious reflection. In so far as he carried out this conviction in his work, he is to be ranked with the great humorists of all time.

ADVERTISING AIX-LES-BAINS

True,

AIX-LES-BAINS. Certainly this is an enchanting place. It is a strong word, but I think the facts justify it. there is a rabble of nobilities, big and little, here all the time, and often a king or two; but as these behave quite nicely and also keep mainly to themselves, they are little or no annoyance. And then a king makes the best advertisement there is, and the cheapest. All he costs is a reception at the station by the mayor and the police in their Sunday uniforms, shop-front decorations along the route from the station to the hotel, brass band at the hotel, fireworks in the evening, free bath in the morning. This is the whole expense; and in return for it he goes away from here with the broad of his back metamorphically stenciled over with display ads., which shout to all nations of the world, assisted by the telegraph: