THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE AND THE STATE*

BY

WALTON CLARK, M.E., D.Sc.,

President of the Institute.

THE Institute's purpose, its reason for being, is, within certain welldefined lines, to render service to the State. When we think of the State in this connection we do not confine ourselves to the borders of the great commonwealth which has given us our charter. Our interest and effort are to advance the knowledge of the mechanic arts; to encourage useful research and invention; to aid the struggling worker and reward the worthy worker in the fields of physical science. If in this effort our vision and our influence reach, as we believe, beyond the confines of the city, the commonwealth, and the republic, and beneficially affect the workers of other continents, we are accomplishing in some measure what the founders of the Institute designed and, in their day, realized. The picturesque expression, “splendid isolation," does not apply to The Franklin Institute. While standing alone, secure of its position, and sufficient to the work laid out for it by its founders, it is yet in close and sympathetic touch with the scientific work of the entire world. Through its publication, the JOURNAL, and through the periodic publications of other scientific and governmental bodies of the world, in number over 1500, there is a constant interchange of scientific information on the subjects with which the Institute has to do; and the many stories of invention, discovery, and development that have found their first expression within the walls of the Institute are spread by it as speedily as may be throughout the civilized world.

The Institute is local only to the extent that its habitat is in Philadelphia and the majority of its officers and supporters have been Pennsylvanians. It is cosmopolitan in the range of its interest, its sympathies, and its influence. The scientific world recognizes that for this notable institution, and for the great work it has done for the world in the broad field of science, the citizens of Philadelphia and of the State of Pennsylvania are mainly responsible. Largely because of this work Philadelphia is regarded as in science the leading American city.

The Franklin Institute has to do with the mechanic arts. Does that suggest to any man that we have to do alone with material things?—that the delights of imagination and the glory of an understanding spirit are outside the field of labor of those whom, for the general good, we strive to aid? Believe it not. Let your mental vision range the centuries of invention. Think of Aristotle and Archimedes; of Michelangelo and Da Vinci; of Lippershey and Galileo; of Papin and Watt; of Stevenson and Baldwin; of

* Remarks of Dr. Clark at a joint meeting of scientific and engineering societies of Philadelphia held on the evening of Friday, May 15, 1914.

Daguerre; of Franklin and Faraday; of Morse; of Lavoisier and Dalton; of Fulton and Gutenberg and Hoe, and of the hundreds of other discoverers and inventors, self-denying and uplifted servants of their fellowmen, now dead, and of the other hundreds, happily yet living; think of these and believe it not. The tools wherewith have wrought these great workers in Nature's laboratory are of the mind. The application is to the amelioration of man's condition, the broadening of man's understanding, and the extension of man's vision, the refining of man's life and manners-in fewer words, the increasing of man's chance for happiness, through the better adaptation to his use of the substance of the world wherein his Creator has placed him.

To aid in this work, through aiding the worker, The Franklin Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts was founded. The composition of its membership, provided in its charter and by-laws, evidences the democratic ideals of its founders,-ideals given concrete expression in an Institute in full sympathy with the spirit of American institutions. In the language of the semi-centennial address of President Dr. Coleman Sellers, "It is a Democratic learned society." Our membership is open to any well-behaved man or woman. No honest seeker after truth is too humble of birth, or station, or fortune, or attainments to enter and advantage from our work. No man of science is too exalted in rank to accept an invitation to present his facts and theories in the forum of our hall and our journal. You who follow our work know the truth of these statements.; and all men must realize how perfectly adapted is an association so organized to serve the individual and State, and that this organization explains the origin of our vitality and its persistence unimpaired to this day, the beginning of the fourth generation.

The Institute offers fruits in evidence that during this long life it has justified the wisdom of its founders, and of its continuing claim to be an institution of utility to the State.

For ninety years The Franklin Institute has maintained a school of instruction in the mechanic arts, from which have gone out thousands of young men, and some young women, to a greater usefulness and to greater opportunity and happiness, because of the education and inspiration had at this school. This education has been a factor of importance in the industrial prosperity of the city of Philadelphia; while the school in which it has been had has served as a pioneer and model in the field of vocational training of the young during their earlier years of actual money-earning employment. We are proud of the character of men whom we graduate-a character that supports them through three or more years of work by day and study by night; we are proud of the evidence their subsequent lives have given of the thoroughness and value of our training, and we are very proud of their loyalty. I do not need to tell this to this audience, but I record it here, that it may come to the knowledge of others who are not so familiar with the work of the Institute, and who, perchance, may read these words, if ever they are printed.

During these ninety years the Institute has maintained a lecture course, free to all who would come, and offering opportunity to obtain knowledge of the progress in the mechanic arts at the fountain-head. I am justified

in saying "the fountain-head by the fact that many notable discoveries, inventions, and developments have had their first announcement in the hall of the Institute.

These lectures have been, many of them, by the foremost men in the scientific world, and each of them has been by a man especially qualified to speak on the subject he has presented. Printed in the JOURNAL, these important pronouncements have gone to the scientist, the operator, and the manufacturer throughout the civilized world.

During its earlier years, up to the time of the Civil War, the Institute held yearly exhibitions, which were recognized throughout the country as important and valuable-illustrating to the generation that saw the beginning of the great American industrial development the then state and progress of the mechanic arts. The value of these early exhibitions and of the great later exhibitions, notably that held on the fiftieth anniversary of the Institute, and the electrical exhibition of 1884, which eclipsed in brilliancy all previous exhibitions of The Franklin Institute, or of any institute, cannot be exaggerated.

The lines of work originated or first described in The Franklin Institute, and now in general use, some under Government direction, are numerous and important. Among them I may mention the Weather Bureau and Geological Survey.

But it is the continuing work of the Institute that interests me most—the schools and the lectures, of which I have spoken; the meetings of the sections, where gather, through the year, men of all grades of importance in the various industrial arts, to listen to and to discuss lectures delivered by the nation's foremost representatives of progress in these arts; and the work of the Science and Arts Committee, encouraging and rewarding progress, whether in special lines or in the broad, general field of invention and discovery.

Neither Pennsylvania, nor Philadelphia, nor any other political entity, has given to the Institute one dollar or one dollar's worth of securities or of realty. The benefit that the State has had from the Institute's work has been a contribution to the public good by a part of the citizenship-that part whose devotion of money and time has given the Institute its support. The recompense these citizens have received has come from the love of the work and the satisfaction of accomplishment, and it has sufficed. The regret they feel over the neglect of the State to aid in the work has its beginning and its end in the disappointment of the desire to make more useful what is already of service. We who are at the time responsible for the work of The Franklin Institute have no desire to embark in new ventures. The work inaugurated by our predecessors is sufficient in variety and extent for our talents and our time, as we venture to believe it will be found sufficient for the talents and time of our successors. But we have, as they will have, a desire to further serve, by increasing the utility of our laboratories, of our schools, of our libraries, and of our lecture courses, and to extend the work of the Science and Arts Committee. We know not how to better the work of our sections and our committees. We know very well how to increase the value to the State of the service we render. A more commodious building, on a

more convenient site, where more people can use our better disposed library and find room in a larger lecture hall; where the students who now fill our school-rooms will find less crowded space for themselves and for the others who now can find no room; where new laboratories may be to the presentday demand what our present laboratories were to the demands of our industrial yesterday, is the obvious answer to our problem.

Living in the hope of this opportunity for enlarged usefulness, we shall coincidently satisfy our ambition by an earnest effort to continue the work of the Institute in a manner in some measure worthy of the examples of our founders and of the emulation of our successors.

In all this we find our "line of least resistance." We are privileged that it falls in such "pleasant places." Following it, we are proud to know that we serve the State and honor the memory of Benjamin Franklin— scientist.

SOME INSTANCES OF THE INSTITUTE'S WORK

(CHRONOLOGICALLY STATED)

1824. It held the first Exhibition of American Manufacturers in Carpenters' Hall on October 18, 19, 20.

Silver medals were awarded for steel, domestic carpetings, straw and grass bonnets, etc.

Classes were established in Chemistry, Mechanics, Natural History, Architecture, Mathematics, and Drawing.

The first course of lectures commenced April 28 and was held in the Academy Building, Fourth Street near Arch.

1826. In January the first number of The Franklin Journal was issued under the editorial management of Dr. Thomas P. Jones, who two years later became Superintendent of the United States Patent Office.

It extended its educational efforts by establishing on April 6th a High School, in which Mathematics, Drawing, Geography, History, Latin, Greek, French, Spanish and German were taught. Three hundred and four pupils were in attendance in October.

Thirty-four thousand visitors attended the Institute's Third Industrial Exhibition during its four days' progress.

1827. Select Committee on Dry Docks made a lengthy illustrated report, giving costs, methods of operation, etc.

1829. Committee appointed to investigate the efficiency of moving water as a motive power (water wheel experiments).

1830. Committee appointed to inquire into causes of the explosion of steam boilers.

1831. Joint Committee of Franklin Institute and American Philosophical Society first began systematic meteorological observations in aid of agri

cultural and other interests.

1832. Commission appointed to examine into the resources, including agricultural, of Pennsylvania, an action which led to a Geological Survey of the State.

Notable paper in JOURNAL OF THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE by Professor Walter R. Johnson on "The Strength of Steam Boilers."

The Secretary of the Treasury of the United States requested a further extension of the Institute's inquiry into the causes of the explosion of steam boilers to include the prevention of steam boiler explosions.

Committee appointed to investigate the strength of materials. This committee devised apparatus of various forms for the testing of metals, steam boilers, building materials, etc.

The Institute was requested by the State Legislature to examine and report upon the then existing system of weights and measures.