1 88 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



greatest efforts of the greatest intellects, that have kept their mental 

 eye bright and flesh hard by constant exercise. Apparatus can be 

 bought with money, talents may come to ns at birth; but our mental 

 tools, our mathematics, our experimental ability, our knowledge of 

 what others have done before us, all have to be obtained by work. 

 The time is almost past, even in our own country, when third-rate 

 men can find a place as teachers, because they are unfit for everything 

 else. We wish to see brains and learning, combined with energy and 

 immense working-power, in the professor's chair; but, above all, we 

 wish to see that high and chivalrous spirit which causes one to pursue 

 his idea in spite of all difficulties, to work at the problems of nature 

 with the approval of his own conscience, and not of men before him. 

 Let him fit himself for the struggle with all the weapons which mathe- 

 matics and the experience of those gone before him can furnish, and let 

 him enter the arena with the fixed and stem purpose to conquer. Let 

 him not be contented to stand back with the crowd of mediocrity, 

 but let him press forward for a front place in the strife. 



The whole universe is before us to study. The greatest labor of 

 the greatest minds has given us only a few pearls; and yet the limitless 

 ocean, with its hidden depths filled with diamonds and precious stones, 

 is before us. The problem of the universe is yet unsolved, and the 

 mystery involved in one single atom yet eludes us. The field of re- 

 search only opens wider and wider as we advance, and our minds are 

 lost in wonder and astonishment at the grandeur and beauty unfolded 

 before us. Shall we help in this grand work, or not? Shall our coun- 

 try do its share, or shall it still live in the almshouse of the world? 



