244 THE PRESENT IMPORTANCE OF SCIENCE 



return is not in evidence, it requires a certain faith in the 

 final outcome, which can only be held by those who know 

 what has happened again and again in the past. 



It is, therefore, important that scientists emphasize what 

 is called pure research. Scientific men have not made the 

 importance of this item of their creed sufficiently clear to those 

 who are not scientists. They should preach to the public 

 as well as to their fellows the need for investigation un- 

 hampered by utilitarian demands. The oneness of scien- 

 tific study should be emphasized, to the end that all may 

 understand how science advances and all may live in the 

 faith that knowledge of natural phenomena is worth more 

 than it costs to discover. 



There is small danger that we shall fail to appreciate 

 practical research how to grow thirty bushels of wheat 

 where ten grew before or how to produce a new antitoxin. 

 But there is danger that we may fail to see the other side, that 

 the men capable of doing creative work as investigators may 

 be unable to find a livelihood ; and that in the present, as in 

 the past, the advance of science may depend too largely 

 upon the chance meeting of brains and means. To show that 

 this danger is real, not imaginary, it may be said that in 

 zoological science there are, in the United States to-day, 

 relatively few positions in which a young man of promise 

 may earn a living in pure science. He may teach, with some 

 chance for investigation, or he may find limited opportuni- 

 ties in the applied zoology of government or state service or 

 of commercial enterprise. But for the man who gives 

 promise of being competent to do the pioneering demanded 

 by pure science, there is almost no opportunity for a living. 

 A like condition obtains in many other scientific lines and 

 this failure to provide opportunity for the worker of promise 

 is a reflection upon our civilization; for we are drying up the 

 springs which feed the fountain, and the extent of the loss is 

 incalculable. 2 



2 Since these paragraphs were written the National Research Council has 



