power of such institutions to create; they may foster and aid the
development of genius; and, when rightly applied, such stations
ought to be its fair and honourable rewards. In many instances
their emolument is small; and when otherwise, the lectures which
are required from the professor are not perhaps in all cases the
best mode of employing the energies of those who are capable of
inventing.

I cannot resist the opportunity of supporting these opinions by
the authority of one of the greatest philosophers of a past age,
and of expressing my acknowledgments to the author of a most
interesting piece of scientific biography. In the correspondence
which terminated in the return of Galileo to a professorship in
his native country, he remarks, "But, because my private lectures
and domestic pupils are a great hinderance and interruption of my
studies, I wish to live entirely exempt from the former, and in
great measure from the latter."--LIFE OF GALILEO, p.18. And, in
another letter to Kepler, he speaks with gratitude of Cosmo, the
Grand Duke of Tuscany, who "has now invited me to attach myself
to him with the annual salary of 1000 florins, and with the title
of Philosopher and principal Mathematician to his Highness,
without the duties of any office to perform, but with most
complete leisure; so that I can complete my treatise on
Mechanics, &c."--p.31." [Life of Galileo, published by the
Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.]

Surely, if knowledge is valuable, it can never be good policy in
a country far wealthier than Tuscany, to allow a genius like Mr.
Dalton's, to be employed in the drudgery of elementary
instruction. [I utter these sentiments from no feelings of