3 io POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



liant solution. The same training has devised inoculation for nitrogen- 

 impoverished soils; and now the public regards Moore as a distin- 

 guished example of a scientific man who began to amount to some- 

 thing as soon as he abandoned pure science ! The illustration is prob- 

 ably the more striking since the investigator himself applied his pure 

 science; but it illustrates the fact that such practical results are 

 reached most surely and most quickly from the vantage ground of pure 

 science. 



What the public needs to know is that an effective and economic 

 applied science must root itself in pure science, just as a tree must root 

 itself in the soil. It was with this in view that I laid emphasis upon 

 the general bearing of an investigation as the important feature of its 

 public report. It need not be a practical bearing, to use ' practical ' 

 in its conventional sense; for in many important investigations such a 

 bearing is either lacking or trivial ; but simply the real bearing, which, 

 if it does not appeal to the current desire for immediate practical appli- 

 cation, does appeal to that better desire for information about impor- 

 tant things, to that delight in feeling that the great things are being 

 sought after. The public must be taught that even research that 

 merely means increased knowledge is immensely practical, for it means 

 an attitude of mind, a method, a body of knowledge that must be avail- 

 able for every important problem, whether it happens to be one of 

 economic interest or not. 



Such education, as all education, will be slow, but the increasing 

 number of investigators who are being drawn from pure science to 

 applied science will give increasing illustrations of the necessary train- 

 ing for results. 



2. It will secure endowment for research. — To show to an intelli- 

 gent public that the investigations in pure science are the only kind 

 that are fundamentally practical would not be worth while if it did 

 not result in a better support of research. 



It is clear that the question of adequate support for research is the 

 most serious one that confronts American science to-day. Teaching 

 and administration tax the time and energy of established investiga- 

 tors; the expense of investigation is becoming greater; the opportuni- 

 ties for it in the way of position and equipment are so few that there 

 is no inducement for young men to become investigators. Not equipped 

 for the men we have, the very desirable multiplication of men is impos- 

 sible. And yet, such equipment as we have is dependent in certain 

 measure upon our output of men. In spite of these conditions, the 

 volume of research is increasing yearly, and young men are still found 

 who will not sell their birthright for a mess of pottage. These condi- 

 tions will continue to become harder unless some relief is found. 



The Carnegie Institution was intended to furnish some relief. 



