Surely, If Knowledge Is Valuable, It Can

In Mathematics We Have Long Since Drawn The Rein, And Given Over A Hopeless Race.

That The State Of Knowledge In Any Country Will Exert A Directive Influence On The General System Of Instruction Adopted In It, Is A Principle Too Obvious To Require Investigation.

It Will Be Readily Admitted, That A Degree Conferred By An University, Ought To Be A Pledge To The Public That He Who Holds It Possesses A Certain Quantity Of Knowledge.

Science In England Is Not A Profession: Its Cultivators Are Scarcely Recognised Even As A Class. Our Language Itself Contains No Single Term By Which Their Occupation Can Be Expressed. We Borrow A Foreign Word [savant] From Another Country Whose High Ambition It Is To Advance Science, And Whose Deeper Policy, In Accord With More Generous Feelings, Gives To The Intellectual Labourer Reward And Honour, In Return For Services Which Crown The Nation With Imperishable Renown, And Ultimately Enrich The Human Race.

The Influence Of Electricity In Producing Decompositions, Although Of Inestimable Value As An Instrument Of Discovery In Chemical Inquiries, Can Hardly Be Said To Have Been Applied To The Practical Purposes Of Life, Until The Same Powerful Genius [davy] Which Detected The Principle, Applied It, By A Singular Felicity Of Reasoning, To Arrest The Corrosion Of The Copper-sheathing Of Vessels. ... This Was Regarded As By Laplace As The Greatest Of Sir Humphry's Discoveries.