Where would that Tuscan boric acid industry have been now
had merely the lamentations of landowners, fears of the people, and
exorcisms of the priests been continued? Instead of being the work of
the arch-enemy of mankind, was not it rather an incitement to a somewhat
high and difficult step in an upward direction towards the attainment,
on a higher platform of knowledge and skill, of a blessing for the whole
province of Tuscany? What was true in the history of that industry and
its development is every whit as true of the much-lamented slackening of
trade through foreign competition or other causes now in this country,
and coming home to yourselves in the hat-manufacturing industry. The
higher platform to which it was somewhat difficult to step up, but upon
which the battle must be fought and the victory won, was one of a higher
scientific and technological education and training. The chemist Hoeffer
made the discovery of boric acid in the vapours, they would no doubt
take note; but Hoeffer went no further; and it needed the man of both
educated and practical mind like Count Lardarel to turn the discovery to
account and extract the blessing.
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