73 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the research accomplished, either in our own country or in Europe, 

 has been clone by university or college professors, in the intervals 

 between their regular duties, as an incidental matter, and usually 

 with meagre appliances. Two results have followed: first, much 

 wasting of individual energy ; and, secondly, a lack of coherence in 

 the knowledge won. The data of science become unsystematic, scat- 

 tered, full of gaps and breaks, more like an archipelago than a conti- 

 nent. A thousand investigators, working independently and with 

 but casual reference to each other, may discover a vast number of 

 important facts, advance many useful arts, and yet accomplish but 

 little for definite, exact, systematic, coherent science. The world 

 gains much by their labors, but only a tithe of what it might gain 

 were those labors wisely aided and fostered. For the present state 

 of affairs, however, nobody is to blame. It is probably an unavoid- 

 able incident of scientific growth. A wider public culture and a 

 deeper public appreciation will undoubtedly correct it. Looking 

 forward hopefully, then, we may ask how the greatest good is to be 

 done. 



That the two sciences already mentioned are much in need of 

 material encouragement, there can be but little doubt. They are 

 experimental sciences, requiring for their advancement expensive ap- 

 paratus and materials, such as individual students cannot provide for 

 themselves, or few universities supply. Other branches of knowl- 

 edge have been better provided for. Every observatory is to a cer- 

 tain degree a laboratory for astronomical research ; every well- 

 arranged museum affords opportunities for the scientific naturalist ; 

 every geological survey is ostensibly an organization of investigators. 

 But a college laboratory, full of elementary students, each calling 

 for personal attention from the professor, can hardly supply the best 

 means for really advanced work. To be sure, every professor ought 

 to do something, if only to discover a single small fact a year. Even 

 though that fact be a hopeless negative, it will still have a true sci- 

 entific value. When we question Nature, every answer, whether yes 

 or no, counts for something in the upbuilding of science. Every 

 man who is fit to teach science at all is competent to do at least a 

 little in this direction. A little also may be accomplished by stu- 

 dents; such work, for example, as the determination of densities, or 

 completing the description of simple compounds. In one laboratory 

 special attention might be paid each year to a single class of not 

 over-complicated substances ; and the advanced students could for 

 that class fill up some of the gaps in our knowledge. But this 

 work, although of immense value to science, is not of the very high- 

 est order. The most important labors can scarcely be undertaken 

 save in laboratories specially and liberally endowed for purely scien- 

 tific research. 



The objections which are frequently urged against the endowment 



