The Royal Institution: Its Founder and First ProfessorsJones, Bence
History
The Royal Institution: Its Founder and First Professors
Jones, Bence
Davy, Humphry, Sir, 1778-1829; Royal Institution of Great Britain; Rumford, Benjamin, Graf von, 1753-1814; Young, Thomas, 1773-1829
He ended, ‘I am, dear Sir, with sincere regard and respect, your
most obedient and most humble servant.’
He again wrote to Sir Joseph Banks on July 24. He began by asking if he
could have one of the two hundred medals for Cook’s voyages given to
Fellows of the Royal Society, and he ended with a postscript:
I beg you would make my best compliments to Mr. Blagden when you
see him, and tell him I hope he will not entirely forget an old
correspondent who remembers him with great affection.
Cuvier, in his _éloge_ of Count Rumford, says of the Electors of
Bavaria:
Les souverains agrandis à l’époque des guerres de religion,
par suite de leur zèle pour le catholicisme, avaient longtemps
porté les marques de ce zèle bien au-delà de ce que réclame
un catholicisme éclairé: ils encourageaient la dévotion et ne
faisaient rien pour l’industrie; on comptait dans leurs états plus
de couvents que de fabriques. L’armée y était à peu près nulle;
l’ignorance et l’inertie dominaient dans toutes les classes de la
société.
The first work in Bavaria of Sir Benjamin Thompson was to rearrange
the military service and introduce a new system of order, discipline,
and economy among the troops. In the execution of this commission
he says: ‘I was ever mindful of that great and important truth that
no political arrangement can be really good except in so far as it
contributes to the general good of society. I have endeavoured to unite
the interest of the soldier with the interest of civil society, and to
render the military force, even in the times of peace, subservient to
the public good.’ To make soldiers citizens, and citizens soldiers, the
soldier was better paid, better clothed, better housed, better taught,
better occupied, better amused, and, above all, allowed to earn money
and to spend it as he pleased. Fixed garrisons were formed, and the
army was used as a means of introducing useful improvements into the
country. Thus military gardens were formed to introduce the culture
of the potato. Workhouses for manufacturing clothing for the army
were founded, first at Mannheim for the troops of the Palatinate and
Duchies of Juliers and Bergen, and a few months afterwards at Munich
for the fifteen Bavarian regiments. The greatest order and economy
were used in the military manufactory and magazine, and after six
years Sir B. Thompson wrote that the net profit on the various trades
and manufactures in the Munich Workhouse up to that time was 100,000
florins; and he could refer to its growing reputation, its extensive
connexions, which reached even to foreign countries, to the punctuality
with which all its engagements were fulfilled, to its unimpeached
credit, and to its growing wealth. The amount of orders executed in
the sixth year of its establishment did not fall much short of half a
million of florins.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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