EDITOR'S TABLE. 



241 



a valuable member of society, and so- 

 ciety takes pains publicly to indicate its 

 appreciation of his value. When we 

 say that in this country one may devote 

 his life to science, and may gratuitously 

 give to scientific investigation an amount 

 of labor and talent which would se- 

 cure him both wealth and distinction in 

 any other profession, without receiving 

 therefor a solitary public mark or ex- 

 pression of appreciation from any source 

 whatever, or the slightest additional 

 consideration from the public, hardly 

 any thing more is necessary to show 

 that there is here comparatively little 

 incentive to such work." 



The backwardness of science in 

 this country is thus attributed to the 

 lack of those incentives to its cultiva- 

 tion which come from public appre- 

 ciation. There is talent enough, there 

 are facilities enough, there is interest 

 enough in research, but there is no 

 sufficient external spur to scientific ex- 

 ertion. Men will not toil where their 

 labors are unappreciated, and the gen- 

 eral esteem of science is too low to 

 arouse and sustain the necessary am- 

 bition in its original cultivators. As- 

 suming this to be a correct view of the 

 case, the question arises, What is to be 

 done? Are we to try to repeat the 

 experience of Europe ? In European 

 countries there has been the slow and 

 gradual differentiation of a scientific 

 class which has its wealthy, powerful, 

 and venerated organizations that form 

 a kind of scientific world, the appro- 

 bation and rewards of which are suffi- 

 cient to stimulate men to give their 

 lives to research. No such class has 

 been developed here. Our investiga- 

 tors are too few and widely scattered, 

 and their associations are too weak to 

 give inspiration and support to original 

 work. It is a case of immaturity, and 

 Europe has the start of us by centuries. 

 We have tried to imitate the foreign 

 academies and associations, but the 

 effort is futile, for the lack is of scien- 

 tific feeling motive power to work 



vol. vi. 16 



and that cannot be created by acts 

 of corporation. Obviously, therefore, 

 from the nature of our circumstances, 

 scientific development in this country 

 must take a different course, and con- 

 nect itself with general education and 

 public opinion. As long as we rely upon 

 imported methods of nurture, science 

 must languish in this country, and fall 

 further and further behind ; but when 

 the policy of the advancement of science 

 is made to conform to the character of 

 our institutions, when science takes the 

 place to which it is entitled in our 

 system of popular education, then may 

 we expect such an increasing apprecia- 

 tion of it as will give much stronger in- 

 citement to the work of original inves- 

 tigation. But in this matter of the 

 popular diffusion of science it seems 

 there has been even less interest here 

 than abroad. Prof. Newcomb says : 



" Our instrumentalities for commu- 

 nicating to the educated public a knowl- 

 edge of the doings of the scientific world 

 have, until very lately, been nearly as 

 defective as our means of scientific pub- 

 lication, and, notwithstanding certain 

 recent improvements, are still far be- 

 hind those of other nations. In Eng- 

 land, France, and Germany, weekly, 

 monthly, and quarterly journals of 

 popular science are too numerous to 

 be recounted ; while, previous to the 

 establishment of The Popular Sci- 

 ence Monthly by the Appletons, we 

 had not in this country a single jour- 

 nal designed to diffuse the knowledge 

 either of general or exact science. The 

 American Naturalist, as it& name im- 

 plies, is devoted entirely to biology. 

 One of our principal scientific wants 

 has been a publication which should 

 serve as a medium of communication be- 

 tween, scientific men and the educated 

 public, as well as between the various 

 classes of scientific workers." 



And again : "Within the past three 

 or four years there has- been a large 

 increase in the amount of popular scien- 

 tific publication in this country, which 



