MEN OF SCIENCE AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC. 27 



the useful and the practical which does not tend to exalt the sci- 

 entific man in the opinion of the public. Even the great leaders 

 in science have been misrepresented in this matter. Because they 

 wisely determined in many instances to leave to others the task of 

 developing the practical applications of their discoveries, it has 

 often been represented that they held such applications as un- 

 worthy a true man of science. As illustrating the injustice of 

 such an opinion, one may cite the case of the most brilliant phi- 

 losopher of his time, Michael Faraday, who in the matter of 

 his connection with the Trinity House alone gave many of the best 

 years of his life to the service of his fellow-men. The intensely 

 " practical " nature of this service is shown by the fact that it in- 

 cluded the ventilation of lighthouses, the arrangement of their 

 lightning conductors, reports upon various propositions regarding 

 lights, the examination of their optical apparatus, and testing sam- 

 ples of cotton, oils, and paints. A precisely similar illustration is 

 to be found in the life of our own great physicist, Joseph Henry, 

 who sacrificed a career as a scientific man, already of exceptional 

 brilliancy, yet promising a future of still greater splendor, for a 

 life of unselfish usefulness to science and to his countrymen, as Sec- 

 retary of the Smithsonian Institution, as a member of the Light- 

 house Board, and in other capacities for which he was especially 

 fitted by nature as well as by his scientific training. 



There is an unfortunate and perhaps a growing tendency 

 among scientific men to despise the useful and the practical in 

 science, and it finds expression in the by no means uncommon 

 feeling of offended dignity when an innocent layman asks what is 

 the use of some new discovery. 



Referring to the theoretically extremely interesting spar prism 

 of Bertrancl, which under certain conditions may be used to detect 

 traces of polarization of light, a recent writer remarks, " But for 

 this application the prism would possess, in the eyes of the true 

 votary of science, the inestimable value of being of no practical 

 utility whatever." 



Much is said, everywhere and at all times, about the pursuit of 

 science for the sake of science ; and on every hand it is sought to 

 convey the impression that one who has any other object in view 

 in interrogating Nature than the mere pleasure of listening to her 

 replies, is unworthy of a high place among men of science. So 

 old, so universally accepted, so orthodox, is this proposition, that 

 it is with much hesitation that its truth is questioned in this pres- 

 ence. In so far as it means that one can not do anything well un- 

 less it is done con amove, that pecuniary reward alone will never 

 develop genius, that no great philosopher or poet or artist will 

 ever be other than unselfishly devoted to and in love with his 

 work, just so far it is true, although it does not, as is often as, 



