ERRATA. Page 265, foot note, for Plate II. read Plate III. et seq. Page 289, line 17 from bottom, for Plate IX. read Plate VIII. ON A KNOWLEDGE OF PRACTICAL SCIENCE. LECTURE I.* ON THE NECESSITY OF INCORPORATING WITH THE PRACTICE OF THE MECHANICAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS A KNOWLEDGE OF PRACTICAL SCIENCE. IF I possessed a command of language capable of rendering what I have to communicate more attractive, I should probably have less difficulty in making the subject, on which I venture to address you, to be clearly and explicitly understood. I hope, however, notwithstanding the difficulties under which I labour, to be able to engage your attention on a subject of some importance, inasmuch as its true appreciation may lead to results in every sense calculated to improve our practice and enlarge our conceptions of the principles on which our respective callings are founded. In attempting to investigate the present state of our knowledge of the constructive arts, I have been induced to believe, that, although we may be considered to rank * Delivered, at the request of the Directors, to the Members of the Manchester Mechanics' Institution, March 1852. amongst the first in the art of mechanical design and construction, we are, nevertheless, not the first for scientific attainments in some other departments of the useful arts. To make our position more clearly understood, I shall endeavour to point out wherein our superiority consists, and wherein I consider we are behind the inventive talent and practice of other countries. There cannot exist a doubt that we are far from perfect and have much to learn in this respect. The Great Exhibition of last year directed public attention to our position as an industrial people, and one of the beneficial results of that immense and varied collection of constructive art is observable in the notice which the subject is now beginning to receive, in quarters best calculated to direct the public taste, and encourage a better and purer style of construction. It is a singular but an important fact, that in countries where the industrial arts are cultivated with the greatest success, the principles on which they are founded should be so imperfectly understood. How very few of our best practitioners in Architecture, and Civil and Mechanical Engineering, are acquainted with the principles, or even with the simplest theoretical rules of their professions; and how often have they to depend upon chance, instead of sound elementary knowledge, for the various constructions on which they elaborate defective, if not abortive results! I have myself laboured, and still labour, under these disadvantages, and it is from a consciousness of this deficiency that I now address you. I do so under the impression that our successors may attain greater distinction, and greater certainty, in the strength, beauty, and proportion of their constructions, than we have hitherto been able to accomplish. At the present moment, and for many years past, we have suffered severe inflictions on our national pride, in being called upon to witness failures and abortions in the art of construction, which a cultivated taste, superior skill and extended knowledge would have prevented. This is a national reproach, and the example of the past will continue to be the rule of the future, so long as we have to grope our way in the dark, under the guidance of prejudice and ignorance, instead of being governed by sound principles and correctly determined laws calculated to produce very different and much happier results. To render the subject on which I purpose to address you as intelligible and as explicit as possible, I shall adopt the useful practice of dividing it into heads, as follows: I. On the necessities which exist for a more extended knowledge of science in union with practice. II. On the importance of national schools and institutes for imparting scientific knowledge to foremen and managers of works. III. Educational institutions as established on the Continent of Europe and in America. IV. Differences of scholastic institutions in this as compared with those of other countries. V. On the comparative state of our manufacturing industry as applied to cotton, during the last and the present centuries. VI. The increase of other branches of industry in a similar ratio to that of cotton; and VII. Self-acting machines, and their application to constructive science. I. On the necessities which exist for a more extended knowledge of science in union with practice. It is extraordinary, that in this country-which, above all others, is famed for the extent of its manufactures, mechanical skill, and extensive practice in the useful arts —there should be no institute, nor any establishment whatever to teach and instruct the rising generation in the elementary rules of their respective professions: these, of all others, are the most important to the community, and the best calculated to enhance the value, and extend the influence, of our industrial resources. In my opinion, every one should be taught the rudiments and higher branches of their professions upon the same principles as barristers and physicians are taught, and with this difference only, that no man should be ineligible to practise his profession, whenever he has fitted himself for the discharge of its duties; any enactment to the contrary would militate against the freedom of labour and the employment of capital, and if carried out would paralyse the best interests of a manufacturing and commercial community. All persons intended for professional pursuits in connection with the art of construction, should have a theoretical as well as a practical education. They should be taught the fundamental rules connected with their respective professions, or at least so much of theory as would enable them to enter upon the practice with some degree of certainty, and that more especially in the practical development of those principles on which the safety of the public and the success of their professional career depend. It is absurd to talk against theory, as if a knowledge of the exact sciences was a dangerous and a useless attainment; nothing can be more erroneous than this impression, as on close inspection there is no practice without theory, any more than there is an effect without a cause. In the useful arts, theory can only be considered dangerous when it is not reducible to practice, and the real meaning of the term theory-which creates so much alarm in the minds of practical men-is neither more nor less than a series of definite rules by which practice is governed, and through which we derive, from fixed and definite laws, those sound and definite results, which of all others it is the primary |