“...Never have the sciences been so generally useful as in our time. Their language, previously difficult and mystical, became easy and clear. Knowledge, which was the lot of a special class of people, properly called scientists, is now spreading more and more, having left the narrow limits in which it was long confined. Great Geniuses, convinced of the need for public education for both private and public good, tried and are trying to lure people into the rich fields of Science; communicating to them important truths and information not only in an understandable but also pleasant way, and leading them to the treasures of the mind along a path strewn with flowers...” The work is given in the pre-reform alphabet.