PRACTICAL VALUE OF PURE SCIENCE 247 



funds, then calls for more. If an institution does not receive an 

 increasing amount each year, it is not only standing still, but it is also 

 going backward, for it gets more and more behind the times. Prac- 

 tical men are quite right in inquiring whether there is going to be 

 some return to them out of this expenditure, and we have to answer 

 them truthfully. Universities and museums and libraries, the centers 

 of scientific activity, have enormous mouths that are always agape, like 

 overgrown nestling birds. You put money into them, but you do not 

 get money back, at least not directly. This point is very certain and 

 there is no use trying to hide it. But what you do get back are ideas, 

 new ideas. Much of the work represented by such institutions is scien- 

 tific, and if you endow them you help to increase the ideas that make 

 possible practical ends. You will notice that I have not been arguing 

 for the prosecution of applied science, more properly, the applications 

 of science, for the value of this is apparent to all. I have been speak- 

 ing for the pursuit of pure science, because it is the necessary fore- 

 runner to any new practical application. This is the fact I wish to 

 drive home because it is seldom understood. Scientists themselves 

 often do not realize it, but think that pure science should be studied, 

 even if it can never be made to touch the needs of human life. Men 

 who are not scientists are apt to shrug their shoulders and to say that 

 science may be interesting to some, but that they can not see the use of 

 it and consequently can not see the value of education in pure science. 

 So long as this remains the point of view, higher education and research 

 must have the old hard road to travel. But if we will open our eyes 

 to the fact that even pure science is really of useful value, and its his- 

 tory is proof of this, then the standing objection to higher education 

 will be removed. 



