Alexis de Tocqueville was born into a noble French family in 1805. After swearing his allegiance to the new government of France, he and a friend, Gustave de Beaumont, sought and received an assignment to study prison systems in the United States. After his arrival in May of 1831, Tocqueville made some of the cleverest, most enlightening observations anyone has ever made. His outlook on why the Americans were more addicted to practical rather than theoretical science was one of the most interesting.
             Equality begets in man the desire of judging of everything for himself: it gives him, in all things, a taste for the tangible and the real, a contempt for traditions and for forms.
             Tocqueville meant that people in America thought for themselves. They could figure out what was actually real, and did not like to follow traditions or go along with what other people thought, said, or did. This quote clearly shows that Tocqueville thought that the American people were obviously more practical than theoretical. He even stated in chapter 10, the chapter covering this issue, that "Americans always displayed a clear, free, original, and inventive power of mind". He also went on to state that hardly anyone in the United States devoted himself or herself to the essentially theoretical and abstract portion of human knowledge.
             In a community thus organized, it may easily be conceived that the human mind may be led insensibly to the neglect of theory; and that it is urged, on the contrary, with unparalleled energy, to the applications of science, or at least to that portion of theoretical science which is necessary to those who make such applications.
             Alexis de Tocqueville seemed to think that Americans needed to be theoretical from time to time. He thought it would bring them more intellect, and perhaps interest. He also thought that instead of wasting good energy and activity, people should become more theoretical about things...