94 RANSOME: NATIONAL GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 



have shown Httle interest in popularizing their science or in 

 encouraging its pursuit by amateurs. Such attempts as have 

 been made have often been inept and unsuccessful and the pro- 

 fessional geologists have looked with more or less disdain upon 

 those of their fellows who have tried to expound their science to 

 the people. They have felt that men with unusual ability for 

 research should devote all of their energy to the work of enlarging 

 the confines of knowledge rather than to dissemination and 

 popularization of what is known to the few. There is undoubtedly 

 much to be said for this view and when applied to certain ex- 

 ceptional men it is strictly correct. When, however, we think 

 of Darwin and compare the magnitude of his achievements with 

 the pains that he took to make his conclusions comprehensible 

 by the multitude, we are inclined to feel that only by extraordi- 

 nary ability and performance in certain directions can an in- 

 vestigator in natural science be altogether absolved from the 

 duty of making himself intelligible to more than a few specialists 

 in his own line. There are undoubtedly many scientific men 

 thoroughly and earnestly convinced of the importance of their 

 researches, who would in the long run be doing more for humanity 

 and perhaps for themselves if they would spare some time to tell 

 us as clearly and attractively as possible what it is that they are 

 doing. While I believe this to be true of scientific men in gen- 

 eral, it is particularly true of those who are officially servants of a 

 democracy. A democratic government might almost be char- 

 acterized as a government by compromise, and this is one of 

 the major compromises that confronts scientific men in the ser- 

 vice of such a government. The conclusion that a very important 

 function of a national geological survey is the education of the 

 people in geology and the increasing of popular interest in that 

 science, appears to be unavoidable, yet it is surprising how little 

 this function has been recognized and exercised. The results 

 of such education are cumulative and a direct and permanent 

 gain to science, whereas, on the other hand, the consequences of 

 prostituting the opportunities for scientific work to satisfy this 

 and that popular demand for so-called practical results in any 

 problem that happens to be momentarily in the public eye, is a 



