Frostburg Mining Journal

An Address before the Students of the Pardee Scientific Department in Lafayette College, by Mr. P. W. Sheafer
[Concluded.]

Another element required to build up our nation's greatness we must consider to-day. We must, above all, possess an intelligent and skilled direction and directors. In vain do we gather multitudes of men for war, and send them in confused masses against the enemy. Unless we marshal them under well skilled leaders, they will accomplish nothing. To-day all our colleges and other institutions all over our land, we are proud to say, are equipped and preparing skilled officers to do effective service. Let each act well his part. With intelligence and industry each man is sure to make his mark,--to take his place, and help on the great work before us.

Do you ask, what is this work?- Look about you and see it. It is the work of carrying on the world. It is the work of ennobling the world. We must make it better and purer and holier for our having lived in it. The old theory of successive ages of gold, of silver, of bronze and of iron, was all wrong. In the "golden age" of the ancients their ancestors were wandering half naked, through interminable woods, killing with flint lances the wild animals on which they fed, roasting them before a rude fire, fighting among themselves for the largest share, and when the flesh was consumed, cracking the bones of their prey to get at the marrow. The golden age has never existed. We have only just passed the age of wood, and entered upon that of iron, and it is our mission to extend and exalt its sway. The control and use of coal and the metals are but arts of civilization, nor do we stop at their ordinary use. We must not expect to plod in the old, deep-worn paths, but ever strive after the Excelsior. Every thing must be made better, quicker, cheaper. The first watch was a great achievement, but how much better we make them now Were we satisfied with a fast line of coaches, ten miles an hour? Are we to-day content with the locomotive, at thirty or forty? Do we not hope that better perfected materials and machinery will one day carry us one hundred miles an hour with no more danger? We daily see animated machinery no larger than a man's hand but made by the great Artificer, cleave the air at the rate of sixty miles an hour; or, as in the case of some carrier pigeons, even one hundred: and shall we stop short of this degree of perfection? The strength of our machinery on land exceeds that of Nature's; then why not imitate her in the air, and on the waves, or under them: If Nature's machinery can overcome the resistance of the elements, why can't ours? Have the telegraph, photograph and telescope, reached the limit of their powers? We think not fully, nor perhaps, nearly. We have quick transmission of thought and faithful reproduction of feature and form; but we are not yet able to place the miniature landscape in all its gorgeous tints upon the photographer's plate, nor can we yet dispense with the slow old method of type setting. The electro-type, as yet is only applied to a fraction of its future uses. The telegraph strikes one note: why not make it transmit harmonious melody? All these things are still wanting to be done. The great treasures of Nature's arcana are but partially explored. The last hundred years have opened much to our view; where will the next hundred place us? Are all the coal fields explored? What will the interior of Africa reveal? We need more iron, to supply the world with a set of rails for every road: myriads of iron ships for every sea, besides ships for the air. We need a more speedy method of tunneling through Alpine heights. We need to have air made as subservient as gas or water, to be carried in pipes and made to blow a whirlwind blast or flutter a lady's fan. These are but glimpses of a few drops from the ocean of knowledge which still remains to be explored.

Reviewing the past and with prophetic ken anticipating the future, we see that a small portion of the universe has been imperfectly developed. Nature's secret chambers are but partially opened, her vaults of gold and silver scarcely touched, her copper mines shining in but one great locality, her diamond fields few and far between. Africa but simply heard of, her oil wells merely in their beginning-all sufficient for our present population, but all too small for the coming myriads.

Nor does the Creator design us for mere parts of machinery, to manufacture His raw materials into the mechanism of civilization. He intends the education not of the hands alone, but of the head and the heart: to establish His great kingdom on the earth, not only in the University and in the College, but in the humblest school-house, and in all the workshops and homes of the world. Let all of us, individually and collectively, strive to study the elements and their combinations, and learn by obeying their laws to control them as readily as one man with a simple lever controls the ponderous train: but let us do all to the glory of the Creator and Controller of the Universe, and use our knowledge only in His service.