312 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



chance. The world is the opportunity of the man who can seize it. 

 All the true naturalist demands is to be born into it. 



In like fashion, splendid resources count for nothing till they fall 

 into the right hands. The existence of a microscope or microtome is 

 no guarantee that some one will use it. The presence of a collection is 

 no sign that some one will study it. It requires courage and zeal to 

 lay hold of anything, and these qualities do not always dwell in kings' 

 houses. Generous facilities can not take the place of men, and the 

 best working rooms in the world will not raise mediocrity into genius. 

 Haeckel once said bitterly that the output of laboratories in biology 

 was always in inverse ratio to the completeness of their appointments. 



For there are always influences at work, extrinsic and intrinsic 

 forces, as I said just now, which oppose the spirit of investigation. 

 Among these I class all which tend to make investigation perfunctory 

 and all those which crown achievement with worldly reward. I have 

 known men in European museums to say deliberately: It is time to 

 put out another paper. What is the easiest thing I can do? Mean- 

 while searching for the line of work which will yield the largest num- 

 ber of pages for the amount of energy put forth. Something of this 

 sort results from the pressure of university publication committees. 

 So many pages of original research demanded for each month in the 

 calendar. Better not print at all than to make it a stated function. 

 On the whole, I place the fellowship system as a discouragement to 

 research. The real comrade in zealous learning is a man who can take 

 care of himself. To get his own training where he can do it best, in 

 his own way, at his own cost, is one of the best parts of his scientific 

 training. The free lunch at the university tempts those who are 

 hungry, the pedant, the place-seeker, the second-hand scholar — to the 

 prejudice of the investigator. The kind of man who best passes ex- 

 aminations is not the original, the forceful, the creative scholar. He 

 has something better than examinations to think about. It is not to 

 the credit of the American university system that the number of doc- 

 tors of philosophy — to borrow a suggestion from Dr. Jacques Loeb — 

 each year corresponds almost exactly to the number of young men hired 

 to study in the particular institution. So many fellowships, so many 

 doctors of philosophy. Very few of these stall-fed scholars have the 

 courage or the conscience to do independent work after the outside 

 stimulus is withdrawn. 



Within the walls of the academy the place of the investigator is not 

 sure. Temptations assail him here from within and from without. 

 One of the meanest is the impulse to acquire a reputation cheaply, to 

 conduct his researches under the lime light, making great discoveries 

 while the printer waits. Yet our newspapers are full of grave discus- 

 sions of* the outgivings of these lackeys of science. Almost equally 

 cheap is the temptation to publication for publication's sake, to have 



