Page:History of the Royal Society.djvu/152

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The HISTORY of

their Factors abroad to answer their Inquiries; they have laid out in all Countries for Observations; they have bestow'd many considerable Gifts on their Treasury and Repository. And chiefly there is one Bounty to be here inserted, which for the singular Benefit that may be expected from it, deserves the Applause and Imitation of this and future Times. It is the Establishment made by Sir John Cutler, for the reading on Mechanicks, in the Place where the Royal Society shall meet. This is the first Lecture that has been founded of this Kind, amidst all the vast Munificence of so many Benefactors to Learning in this latter Age. And yet this was the most necessary of all others. For this has chiefly caus'd the slow Progress of manual Arts; that the Trades themselves have never serv'd Apprenticeships, as well as the Tradesmen; that they have never had any Masters set over them, to direct and guide their Works, or to vary and enlarge their Operations.

From our Physicians.of our Physicians, many of the most judicious have contributed their Purses, their Hands, their Judgments, their Writings. This they have done, though they have also in London a College peculiar to their Profession; which ever since its first Foundation, for the Space of a hundred and fifty Years, has given the World a Succession of the most eminent Physicians of Europe. In that they confine themselves to the Advancement of Physick: But in this, they have also with great Zeal and Ability promoted this universal Inspection, into all natural Knowledge. For without Danger of Flattery, I will declare of the English Physicians, that no Part of the World exceeds them, not only in the Skill of their own Art, but in general Learning; and of very many of that Profession I will affirm, that all
5
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