622 ENDOWMENT FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. 



The appeal made by Tyndall has been (.tften renewed by scientific 

 men ; by the heads of universities ; by the presidents of scientific asso- 

 ciations, here and abroad; and by none, perhaps, more eloquently than 

 by Dr. Edwin Ray Lancaster, in his address before the biological sec- 

 tion of the British Association at Southport, in 1883. 



What shall we say to the call and the examides of such men? Was 

 the gift of Tyndall based only upon an idle fancy? Or was it the result 

 of a clear perception of a profound truth, viz, America's need of that 

 money as a stimulus and sui)i)ort to more scientific research; the call 

 on him being felt to be the more imperious, because the need of it was 

 so plain to him, while obscure to others; and making his act, therefore, 

 a noble instance of self-renunciation in an unappreciated cause? 



'^To keep society as regards science in healthy play," he says, "three 

 classes of workers are necessary : 



'' 1. The investigator of natural truth, whose vocation it is to pursue 

 that truth and extend the fieM of discovery for truth's own sake, with 

 out leference to practical ends, 



''2. The teacher, to diftuse this knowledge. - - ■ 



"3. The applier of these principles and truths to make them availa- 

 ble to the needs, the comforts or the luxuries of life. - - - 



"These three classes ought to co-exist and interact. The popular 

 notions of science - - - often relate, not to science strictly so called, 

 but to the application of science." 



The great discoveries of scientific truth, he continues, are "not made 

 by practical men, and they never will be made by them; because their 

 minds are beset by ideas which, though of the highest valiie in one point 

 of view, are not those which stimulate the original discoverer." 



In a chance conversation, a lew weeks since, 1 received a confirma 

 tion of these words, so direct and unexpected, that it may bear citation. 

 I was talking with an electrical expert who had made several very in- 

 teresting and iniportant inventions. I asked hiin of how much imi)or- 

 tance he conceived that the scientific men of the closet, the original 

 investigators, so-called, had been in working out the great inventions 

 of electricit>- during th(» last fifty years — the telegraph cables, tele- 

 phones, the electric lighting, and the electric motors; and whether 

 these achievements were not in reality due, mainly, to the practical 

 men, the inventors, who knew what they were after, rather than to the 

 men of science, who rarely applied their work to practical use? 



"Not at all," he said, "the scientific men are of the utmost impor- 

 tance; everything that has been done has proceeded upon the basis of 

 what they have previously discovered, and upon the principles and 

 laws which they have laid down. Nowadays we never Avork at random. 

 Look at that electric liglit! Of the energy expended in producing it, 

 only 7 j)er cent api)ears as light ; the rest, 93 per cent, is wasted, mainly 

 in heat. We are all now trying to prevent this enormous waste. I 

 want to reverse that i)roportion : but if I can reduce the waste to only 



