SCHOOL FOR THE PRACTICAL SCIENCES. MR. LAWRENCE'S DONATION. THE public are well informed of the liberal donation of Fifty Thousand Dollars to Harvard University, by the Hon Abbott Lawrence, for the establishment of a school of practical science. We think the University could not, at the present time, have received a more appropriate and useful donation. It is encouraging to find our citizens becoming more deeply impressed with the importance of the application of science to the uses of life. The services of the scholar who labors in his closet at the solution of an abstruse problem, are indeed indispensable; but without the aid of the practical man, who finds in his solution the means of performing a useful work in a better manner, in a briefer time, or with less expense of human health and strength, his labors would be deprived of more than half their value to the world. And we think there is hardly anything which more strikingly distinguishes the present age as one of improvement, than the fact that so great an amount of useful scientific knowledge, which, less than one hundred years ago, was locked up in Latin folios, or still more deeply concealed in the unexplored books of nature, has come to be a matter of every-day school instruction, and part and parcel of common every-day thought. There is scarcely an art or trade, which is not either directly founded upon the application of some scientific principle, or more or less indirectly dependant upon science. And there are few who are engaged in the various arts and trades, who would not be rendered more intelligent and skilful workmen, as well as more useful members of society, by a more extensive acquaintance with science, especially with those branches which concern their several avocations, than is generally possessed by the mechanic and agricultural classes. In his letter to the Treasurer of the University, proffering the donation to which we have referred, Mr. Lawrence makes the following important remarks: "For several years I have seen and felt the pressing want in our community, (and in fact in the whole country,) of an increased number of men educated in the practical sciences. Elementary education appears to be well provided for in Massachusetts. There is, however, a deficiency in the means for higher education in certain branches of knowledge. For an early classical education, we have our schools and colleges. From thence, the special schools of Theology, Law, Medicine and Surgery, receive the young men destined to those professions; and those who look to commerce as their employment, pass to the counting-house or the ocean. But where can we send those who intend to devote themselves to the practical applications of science? How educate our engineers, our miners, our machinists and our mechanics? Our country abounds in men of action. Hard hands are ready to work upon our hard materials: and where shall sagacious heads be taught to direct those hands? Inventive men laboriously re-invent what has been produced before. Ignorant men fight against the laws of nature with a vain energy, and purchase their experience at great cost. Why should not all these start where their predecessors ended, and not where they begun? Education can enable them to do so. The application of science to the useful arts has changed, in the last half century, the condition and relations of the world. It seems to me that we have been somewhat neglectful in the cultivation and encouragement of the scientific portion of our national economy. Our country is rapidly increasing in population and wealth, and is probably destined, in another quarter of a century, to contain nearly as many inhabitants as now exist in France and England together. We have already in the United States a large body of young men who have received a classical education, many of whom find it difficult to obtain a livelihood in what are termed the learned professions. I believe the time has arrived when we should make an effort to diversify the occupations of our people, and develope more fully their strong mental and physical resources, throughout the Union. We have, perhaps, stronger motives in New England than in any other part of our country, to encourage scientific pursuits, from the fact that we must hereafter look, for our main support, to the pursuit of commerce, manufactures and the mechanic arts-to which it becomes our duty, in my humble judgment, to make all the appliances of science within our power. We inherit, and are forced to cultivate, a sterile soil; and what nature has denied, should be as far as possible supplied by art. must make better farmers, through the application of chemical and agricultural science. We We need, then, a school, not for boys, but for young men whose early education is completed, either in college or elsewhere, and who intend to enter upon an active life as engineers or chemists, or in general as men of science, applying their attainments to practical purposes-where they may learn what has been done at other times and in other countries, and may acquire habits of investigation and reflection, with an aptitude for observing and describing. I have thought that the three great practical branches to which a scientific education is to be applied among us are-1. Engineering; 2. Mining, in its extended sense, including meteorology; 3. The invention and manufacture of machinery. These must be deemed kindred branches, starting from the same point, depending in many respects. upon the same principles, and gradually diverging to their more special applications. Mathematics, especially in their application to the construction and combination. of machinery; Chemistry, the foundation of knowledge, and an all-important study for the mining engineer, and the key to the processes by which the rude ore becomes the ductile metal; Geology, Mineralogy, and the other .sciences investigating the properties and uses of materials employed in the arts; Carpentry; Masonry; Architecture and Drawing are all studies which should be pursued to a greater or less extent, in one or all of these principal divisions. To carry out this course of education in its practical branches, there should be the most thorough instruction in Engineering, Geology, Chemistry, Mineralogy, Natural Philosophy and Natural History. In the last two branches, instruction might perhaps be given by the present College professors. In addition to these, it would be necessary to obtain the services, at stated periods, of eminent men from the practical walks of life. The Law School is taught by distinguished lawyers of the highest reputation; the Medical school, by distinguished physicians. In like manner, this School of Science should number among its teachers, men who have practised and are practising the arts they are called to teach. Let theory be proved by practical results." In order to the execution of this plan, Mr. Lawrence proposes the establishment of three permanent professorships; - one of Chemistry, (which he considers already provided for by the appointment of Mr. Horsford Rumford Professor,) one of Engineering, and one of Geology. Though we cannot anticipate, from an institution of the kind here proposed, that general benefit which we regard as desirable to be enjoyed by all classes of citizens to whom a practical scientific education would be advantageous, we still regard it as a most important step towards bringing the stores of science into wider and fuller usefulness. And though only a few may be direct partakers in its benefits, it will, through them, extend its advantages to still greater numbers, and perhaps be the precursor of still more liberal opportunities for scientific improvement to the people at large. SUMMER MORNING. FROM THE GERMAN. FRESH in the morn is the living breeze, Through the swaying arms of the dark fir trees; The forests, the fountains, Redden and glow in a purple light: The lark is abroad on her airy wing, And the wakened woods with melody ring.* Blessed be the hour of early light, When meadow and stream With beauty gleam, And the grass is touched with a silver white; |