4 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



encourage the highest work, if for no other reason than to encourage 

 the student to his highest efforts. 



But, assuming that the professor has high ideals, wealth such as 

 only a large and high university can command is necessary to allow 

 him the fullest development. 



And this is specially so in our science of physics. In the early 

 days of physics and chemistry, many of the fundamental experiments 

 could be performed with the simplest apparatus. And so we often 

 find the names of Wollaston and Faraday mentioned as needing 

 scarcely anything for their researches. Much can even now be done 

 with the simplest apparatus ; and nobody, except the utterly incompe- 

 tent, need stop for want of it. But the fact remains, that one can 

 only be free to investigate in all departments of chemistry and physics, 

 when he not only has a complete laboratory at his command, but a 

 friend to draw on for the expenses of each experiment. That simplest 

 of the departments of physics, namely, astronomy, has now reached 

 such perfection that nobody can expect to do much more in it with- 

 out a perfectly equipped observatory ; and even this would be useless 

 without an income sufficient to employ a corps of assistants to make 

 the observations and computations. But, even in this simplest of phys- 

 ical subjects, there is great misunderstanding. Our country has very 

 many excellent observatories : and yet little work is done in compari- 

 son, because no provision has been made for maintaining the work of 

 the observatory ; and the wealth which, if concentrated, might have 

 made one effective observatory which would prove a benefit to astro- 

 nomical science, when scattered among a half-dozen, merely furnishes 

 telescopes for the people in the surrounding region to view the moon 

 with. And here I strike the key-note of at least one need of our coun- 

 try, if she would stand well in science. . . . 



Americans have shown no lack of invention in small things ; and 

 the same spirit, when united to knowledge and love of science, be- 

 comes the spirit of research. The telegraph operator, with his limited 

 knowledge of electricity and its laws, naturally turns his attention to 

 the improvement of the only electrical instrument he knows anything 

 about ; and his researches would be confined to the limited sphere of 

 his knowledge, and to the simple laws with which he is acquainted. 

 But as his knowledge increases, and the field broadens before him, as 

 he studies the mathematical theory of the subject, and the electro- 

 magnetic theory of light loses the dim haze due to distance and be- 

 comes his constant companion, the telegraph instrument becomes to 

 him a toy, and his effort to discover something new becomes research 

 in pure science. 



It is useless to attempt to advance science until one has mastered 

 the science : he must step to the front before his blows can tell in the 

 strife. Furthermore, I do not believe anybody can be thorough in any 

 department of science without wishing to advance it. In the study of 



