astronomy appealed to
the imagination. A practical man, who has spent all his life in his
counting room or mill, is sometimes deeply impressed with the vast
distances and grandeur of the problems of astronomy, and the very
remoteness and difficulty of studying the stars attract him.

My object in calling your attention to this matter is the hope that what
I have to say of the organization of astronomy may prove of use to those
interested in other branches of science, and that it may lead to placing
them on the footing they should hold. My arguments apply with almost
equal force to physics, to chemistry, and in fact to almost every branch
of physical or natural science, in which knowledge may be advanced by
observation or experiment.

The practical value of astronomy in the past is easily established.
Without it, international commerce on a large scale would have been
impossible. Without the aid of astronomy, accurate boundaries of large
tracts of land could not have been defined and standard time would have
been impossible. The work of the early astronomers was eminently
practical, and appealed at once to every one. This work has now been
finished. We can compute the positions of the stars for years, almost
for centuries, with all the accuracy needed for navigation, for
determining time or for approximate boundaries of countries. The
investigations now in progress at the greatest observatories have
little, if any, value in dollars and cents. They appeal, however, to the
far higher sense, the desire of the intellectual human being to
determine the laws of nature, the construction of the material universe,
and the properties of the heavenly bodies of which those known to exist
far outnumber those that can be seen.

Three great advances have been made in astronomy. First, the invention
of the telescope, with which we commonly associate the name of Galileo,
from the wonderful results he obtained with it. At that time there was
practically no science in America, and for more than two centuries we
failed to add materially to this invention. Half a century ago the
genius of the members of one family, Alvan Clark and his two sons,
placed America in the front rank not only in the construction, but in
the possession, of the largest and most perfect telescopes ever made. It
is not easy to secure the world's record in any subject. The Clarks
constructed successively, the 18-inch lens for Chicago, the 26-inch for
Washington, the