STATE ZOOLOGIST. 5 



Certainly no zoologist will complain that this law is too nar- 

 row and irrational, for section 3 alone commands for him a 

 field so wide as to call for all lines of zoological investigation. 

 There are, however, certain lines of investigation universally 

 recognized as coming particularly within the scope of such 

 state surveys. But even such investigations almost invariably 

 demand others that at first sight seem foreign. 



The intensely practical man is almost always really the most 

 unpractical, and the greatest obstacle to progress. He will pooh 

 — pooh the investigation of the habits and life history and 

 structure of an unpalatable sucker or the '•insignificant'" 

 stickle back and demand the investigation of the bass and 

 other food fish only, entirely loosing sight of the fact that the 

 one serves as food for some of his favorite fish and the other 

 wages ruinous war against them. 



Many similar examples clearly show up the folly of trying to 

 consider only that which we can immediately utilize, and usu- 

 ally convince the short-sighted that we can not intelligently 

 and successfully manage the one in ignorance of the other. 

 Too many of us forget that what we now call applied science 

 was at one time considered pure science, and that it is a ques- 

 tion whether the Edisons or the Webers, Paradays and Frank- 

 lins have done most for the comfort of mankind, and wiiether 

 the zoologists, who through years of patient work gathered 

 the life histories of many of our parasites, thus dispelling the 

 dark cloud of superstition and suggesting a rational treatment 

 for many diseases and giving to every one the simplest means 

 of protection, should not be classed among the most practical. 



If the results of the patient work of honest investigators of 

 past generations are to-day wielded by the most mechanical 

 laborer, what is to keep the work of the so called scientist 

 from becoming a tool for the comfort and happiness of future 

 generations ? Indeed are we not reminded on all sides that 

 the more thorough our knowledge of the things and phe- 

 nomena about us becomes through observation and experi 

 ment, the better do we utilize them and the more uniform and 

 generally accepted become our interpretations. And does the 

 intellectual work and triumph mean nothing to any or all of us? 



The universe is a whole and not a collection of absolute in 

 dependents, and no line or kind of work, however purely 

 scientific it may appear at the time, can be carried on without 

 sooner or later becoming evident and universally tangible in 

 some practical form. 



