NOTES 327 



of the scientific research worker and then materialised by 

 endless patient experiments in the laboratory ? But no ; to 

 every purely scientific discovery that is made public he brings 

 the same monotonous answer, " Oh, but I don't see what 

 practical use it is to us." He demands that the discovery and 

 its effects shall be almost simultaneous and shall immediately 

 bring sovereigns into his pocket. But science does not work as 

 he wishes and at his bidding, and he is too mentally lazy to 

 perceive the none-the-less certain fact that the effects of scientific 

 research, though sometimes indirect, inevitably appear finally in 

 the manufactory, and materially increase the prosperity of the 

 commercial world. If he once clearly recognised this, he would 

 surely count no effort too strenuous to encourage scientific 

 research and enable its votaries to earn a decent livelihood. 

 The world of science is to-day making every effort to raise 

 itself out of its ill-deserved poverty ; but it is a small body 

 of men — men of the highest order of intellect are necessarily 

 numerically small — and what can they do struggling unaided 

 against the apathetic masses of England? But if the commercial 

 world of this country were to demand that the needs of their 

 research workers, their own life-blood so to speak, should be 

 adequately cared for, such an evil as this, which redounds only 

 to their shame, would soon melt away. In these days the 

 interests of all men are intimately bound together ; business 

 and science are indissolubly linked, and a wide-extended and 

 whole-hearted co-operation are the only foundations on which 

 humanity can safely build. 



Prof. Woodward on the Needs of Research 



In an address read on the occasion of the dedication of the 

 Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, 

 July 10, 1914, Dr. R. S. Woodward took a comprehensive view 

 of the "Needs of Research" and presented many sides of the 

 question which the majority of educationalists and certainly the 

 public at large usually overlook. He does not disdain to begin 

 by defining the seemingly simple word " research," a definition 

 which in this case especially will be particularly helpful, because 

 the meaning the scientist attaches to the word and its signification 

 in the mind of the public are at considerable variance. If the 

 general mass of the people are to be roused to a sense of 



