250 THE PRESENT IMPORTANCE OF SCIENCE 



"On the sand-drift on the veldt-side 



in the fern-scrub we lay, 

 That our sons might follow after 

 by the bones on the way." 



The lesson is plain. Are we in this day of enlightenment 

 doing much better by the workers in pure science? We hail 

 extravagantly the successful investigator in applied science 

 and he is well rewarded; though what he receives is in- 

 significant compared with that allowed to swashbuckling 

 captains of industry. But we do not provide for the man of 

 promise in abstract science a chance to keep at his work, in 

 the hope that he may make real contributions to knowledge. 

 We are greedy over the finished commercial product, while 

 we turn out, to starve or teach, the young men among whom 

 the Leeuwenhoeks of some future science must be found. 

 The conclusion is that our civilization though made possible 

 by the control of nature which science has brought, is not 

 offering adequate opportunity for further investigation. We 

 are neglecting that which might lead to things as undreamed 

 of as was the germ-theory of disease, when Anthony van 

 Leeuwenhoek discovered in 1676 " certain little animals in 

 rain, well, sea, and snow water and also in water wherein 

 pepper had lain infused." 



LIFE-CYCLE OF THE FRESH-WATER MUSSEL 



The life-cycle of the fresh-water mussel further illustrates 

 the nature and importance of research in science. First, 

 because the details of this unique life-history were dis- 

 covered after years of study by those adventurers of science 

 who struck into the hinterland of nature, where lay no beaten 

 trails; and second, because the facts, established in this 

 earlier period and with no utilitarian aim, have during the 

 past twenty years been turned to account in commercial 

 enterprise. We find here an illustration of the discovery of 



