It is not however in the power of such institutions to create; they may foster and aid the development of genius; and, when rightly applied, such stations ought to be its fair and honourable rewards.

In many instances their emolument is small; and when otherwise, the lectures which are required from the professor are not perhaps in all cases the best mode of employing the energies of those who are capable of inventing.
I cannot resist the opportunity of supporting these opinions by the authority of one of the greatest philosophers of a past age, and of expressing my acknowledgments to the author of a most interesting piece of scientific biography.

In the correspondence which terminated in the return of Galileo to a professorship in his native country, he remarks, "But, because my private lectures and domestic pupils are a great hinderance and interruption of my studies, I wish to live entirely exempt from the former, and in great measure from the latter."-- LIFE OF GALILEO, p.18.And, in another letter to Kepler, he speaks with gratitude of Cosmo, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who "has now invited me to attach myself to him with the annual salary of 1000 florins, and with the title of Philosopher and principal Mathematician to his Highness, without the duties of any office to perform, but with most complete leisure; so that I can complete my treatise on Mechanics, &c."-- p.31.
[Life of Galileo, published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.] Surely, if knowledge is valuable, it can never be good policy in a country far wealthier than Tuscany, to allow a genius like Mr.Dalton's, to be employed in the drudgery of elementary instruction.

[I utter these sentiments from no feelings of private friendship to that estimable philosopher, to whom it is my regret to be almost unknown, and whose modest and retiring merit, I may, perhaps, have the misfortune to offend by these remarks.

But Mr.Dalton was of no party; had he ever moved in that vortex which has brought discredit, and almost ruin, on the Royal Society of England;--had he taken part with those who vote to each other medals, and, affecting to be tired of the fatigues of office, make to each other requisitions to retain places they would be most reluctant to quit; his great and splendid discovery would long since have been represented to government.