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Each student speaks of his fragment as if it were a perfect whole, like a symmetrical crystal, or geometrical solid; but the lines which bound it have in reality as little absolute value as the lines on a I political map, where to-day we find a Poland, and to-morrow none: where one year there is a mighty British colony across the Atlantic, and next year an Independent America: where at sunrise there may be a Crimea in Russia, and at sunset a Crimea in France and England.
There is nothing, then, exceptional in the liberality of my commission; but this Chair, nevertheless, has a thoroughly definite aim. It is not in the simple capacity of teacher of the industrial applications of science that I occupy it, but as Director of the Industrial Museum of Scotland. You are all, I presume, aware, that the long—and I may say universally—expressed desire, that we should possess a National Museum, alike of the objects of Natural History and of the products of Industrial Art, is in course of realisation. Ground has been purchased by Government in the immediate vicinity of the University, and in due season a suitable edifice will be erected to receive the collections. The objects of Natural History, of which there is already a splendid series within these walls, will be under the special charge of Professor Allman (who comes amongst us regretted by those who have lost him as a colleague and a teacher, and commended to the professors and pupils of this University as one whom they will love and esteem the more the better they know him); whilst the products of Industrial Art will be under my care. Some time must elapse before the new Museum can be completed, but the buildings at present occupying the site on which it will stand are consigned to me, for the reception of industrial products; and, from the liberality with which the manufacturers of the country are responding to appeals for donations, and by the judicious expenditure of the money put at my disposal for the purchase of specimens, I trust, before long, to have something considerable to show. The nucleus of the Industrial Museum already exists, and will daily enlarge.
With the Industrial Museum, this Chair stands in organic connection. My office, as Professor of Technology, is to be interpreter of the significance of that Museum, and expositor of its value to you, the Students of this University. The Museum, indeed, is intended to serve non-academic as well as academic Students, and to benefit the entire community of Scotland, as well as every stranger who
