488 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



educated in poverty ? Such a thing would not be meritorious 

 in him but a crime ; for we have our duties not only to science 

 but to our families. The scientist who pretends his indiffer- 

 ence to money is, therefore, often only a snob. Moreover, 

 although he himself may have no children, or may possess 

 independent means, this need not necessarily be the case with 

 others. His quixotic attitude merely lowers the price of 

 science in the world and causes other and probably better 

 men to suffer. Still further, for the most obvious economical 

 reasons, it causes science in general to suffer, because when 

 young men see the poverty of the most successful investigators 

 they hesitate to enter such fields of labour and the recruiting 

 of the voluntary army of science is naturally reduced. Cer- 

 tainly no scientific man has the smallest desire to be a million- 

 aire ; but moderate competence is useful to him as to others. 

 A certain amount of money gives him a proper influence for 

 good in society, and enables him to devote himself to those 

 investigations which his nature tells him he is most capable of 

 conducting. On the other hand, keep him in poverty and he 

 soon loses his enthusiasm ; he becomes a fakir sitting in rags 

 by the roadside, and the ripest years of his life are often wasted. 

 Is there any intrinsic reason why the greatest efforts of the 

 best minds in the most fertile of fields should lead to poverty ? 

 Yet the history of the world proves that they generally do so 

 — to the loss not only of Science but of the World. And why, 

 pray ? Because when Science asks for her dole, the World 

 replies, " But those great men, Smith and Jones, are proud to 

 labour for nothing ; why then should I pay you ? " Alas, 

 poor ignorant World does not know that if Smith and Jones 

 are genuine workers they are probably too much engrossed 

 in their toil to bestir themselves for payment ; while if, as 

 more often happens, they are merely purveyors of others' 

 labours, then their lofty and popular pose is adopted for a 

 purpose. And, indeed, snobbery is often a paying cult, and 

 those who labour for nothing do little but frequently get much ! 

 In science as in other things, the proper and honest pro- 

 cedure is to pay for work done ; and, to be frank, the encour- 

 agement of science, of which we hear so much nowadays, must 

 in the end come to this — or to nothing. And in science as in 

 other things snobbery is a false pose which brings only con- 

 tempt upon those who adopt it. 



