Mankind generally occupy the intrenched camp of ignorance within which they know all its walls embrace; outside of which they look upon all that exists with feelings of suspicion and hostility, and alas, this is as true of the educated as of the uneducated classes. It was the French Academy that laughed at Harvey's discovery and at Fulton's plan of propelling steamboats, and even at Arago's suggestion of the electric telegraph, as the Royal Society laughed at Franklin's proposed lightning rods. It was Bonaparte who treated both Fulton and Dr. Gall with contempt. It was the medical Faculty that arrayed itself against the introduction of Peruvian bark, which they have since made their hobby; and it was the same Edinburgh Review which poured its ridicule upon Gall, that advised the public to put Thomas Gray in a straight-jacket for advocating the introduction of railroads. Equally great was the stupidity of the French. The first railroad was constructed in France fifty years ago. Emil Periere had to make the line at his own expense, and it took three years to obtain the consent of the authorities. Their leading statesman, Thiers, contended that railroads could be nothing more than toys. We remember that a committee of the New York Legislature was equally stupid, and endeavored to prove in their report that railways were entirely impracticable. English opposition was still more stupidly absurd. Both Lords and Commons in Parliament were entirely opposed. "The engineers and surveyors as they went about their work were molested by mobs. George Stephenson was ridiculed and denounced as a maniac, and all those who supported him as lunatics and fools." "George Stephenson although bantered and wearied on all sides stood steadfastly by his project, in spite of the declarations that the smoke from the engine would kill the birds and destroy the cattle along the route, that the fields would be ruined, and people be driven mad by noise and excitement." Nothing is better established in history than the hostility of colleges and the professional classes to all great innovations. "Truly (says Dr. Stille in his Materia Medica) nearly every medicine has become a popular remedy before being adopted or even tried by physicians," and the famous author Dr. Pereira declares that "nux vomica is one of the few remedies the discovery of which is not the effect of mere chance." The spirit of bigotry, in former times, jealously watched every innovation. Telescopes and microscopes were denounced as atheistic, winnowing machines were denounced in Scotland as impious, and even forks when first introduced were denounced by preachers as "an insult on Providence not to eat our meat with our fingers." It is not strange that the last fifty years have sufficed to cover with a cloud of collegiate ignorance and bigotry the discoveries of the illustrious Gall, for whom I am doing a similar service, to that of Copernicus for Pythagoras.