17© POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



amined by your own professor, all of whose heresies can be produced 

 and accepted as current coin — perhaps even a little above par. Oliver 

 Wendell Holmes justly remarked that you can not lift a stone without 

 creating a panic among some of the centipedes and other crawling 

 things which enjoyed the darkness it provided. Infant industries in 

 the intellectual field are apt to be destructive of more things than toys, 

 and so they are justly feared by the powers that be. There is this 

 curiously complicated situation, that whereas intellectual progress is 

 not merely advantageous to a nation, but is in this day of the world 

 essential, it is of positive disadvantage to that numerous company to 

 whom change means injury or destruction. This, however, is exactly 

 what may be said of infants of flesh-and-blood : they are costly, trouble- 

 some, often noisy and ugly, and quite unable to do anything useful to 

 compensate for all the injury and expense they involve. In the 

 latter respect, they are much worse than their psychological parallels, 

 for these are usually capable of rendering some service at a very early 

 day. Why, then, do people ever raise children at all ? Simply because 

 they have learned to love them; this sentimental attitude has un- 

 doubtedly saved the race from extinction, and may be relied upon to 

 do so for some time to come. 



I see nothing for it, but the cultivation of a like feeling toward 

 our beloved progeny of the mind. It should be one of the chief aims 

 of university training, it seems to me, to cultivate an appreciation of 

 progress, and an ardent feeling — yes, a sentimental affecting for these 

 babes of the intellect. We should be not merely willing, but happy, 

 to struggle hard to. give them birth, to watch them daily, and if need be 

 walk the floor with them at night. Many a man has shown just this 

 devotion, has remained through the small hours with his eye glued 

 to the microscope, or has refused to be comforted while the threads of 

 his argument were still in a tangle. To most, I fear, all this must 

 seem fanciful. I am not so quixotic as to hope that the beginnings 

 of change will ever be widely understood. Nobody supposes that the 

 parents of Shakespear knew the extraordinary value of the little wailing 

 thing they had ; nor it is possible for the originators of lines of thought 

 to see where they will lead — much less the general public. Not only 

 are we unable to rightly value our infants, but we have an uncom- 

 fortable feeling that some of them will do us no credit — or if we have 

 not that feeling, some of our friends entertain it on our behalf. The 

 truth is, we can not tell the good from the bad at a very early age, 

 and the experience of mankind indicates that a charitable attitude is 

 the wisest. Some of the best thoughts ever born into this world have 

 appeared nonsense to the best friends of their parents. 



I may be permitted to cite some instances in which ideas, cherished 

 for the mere love of them, have done unexpected things in their mature 



