IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 21 



specialist and the quack are not distinguishable by the masses 

 the re suits are often lamentable. 



It i'^ said that the cranks and irrational enthusiasts initiate 

 all reform, not the sober, scientific minds; that the scientific 

 mind is conservative and never leads a reform. If this were 

 true, nevertheless it is always the sober, common- sense ideas 

 that really accomplish the fi^nal good. Reformers are too often 

 impracticable men. It requires all the best scientific methods 

 combined with the best judgment to achieve the final results 

 and eradicate the evils that follow ia the wake of every 

 reformer. We need not so much reformers, for there are 

 plenty of them, but rather the application of scientific meth- 

 ods to the solving of human problems. 



The charge is often made that the theoretical sciences are 

 not practical; that they have no direct bearing on the pursuit 

 of health, wealth, and happiness; that they yield no results of 

 value adequate to the time and labor spent on them. Not long 

 ago a bright young scientist lamented to me the fact that his 

 chosen line of work, systematic botany, was so useless, and 

 that biologists in general contributed nothing to the welfare of 

 lhe human race. It is said that Louis Agassiz made the -pvo- 

 fession of naturalist respectable in America. Before his time 

 it had been barely tolerated. While scientists of to-day are con- 

 sidered equally worthy with other citizens, yet if their labors 

 do not directly materialize in glittering gold they are every- 

 where confronted with the question, "Of what good is it?" 

 And, owing to the peculiariuies of the questioner, very frequently 

 no satisfactory answer can be given. But an answer is needed. 



The teaching of that only which is directly practical tends 

 to swamp all progressive ideas. To restrict our energies to 

 the already known is to degenerate. The cry, " Give us prac- 

 xical Studies" is a note of warning. It means stagnating ten- 

 dencies. To concentrate our energies on practical details too 

 often meaes to ignore broSider relations. We see a wonderful 

 development of technical schools and appliances for the study 

 of the applied arts. To many this seems the scientific goal. 

 Many baiieve that all our energies shouid be directed to the 

 promoting of the applied sciences, and that the day of theoret- 

 ical science is past. So Ave hear demands for manual training 

 departments of our public schools; demands that the literary 

 and general culture of school life shall be minimized for the 

 enlargement of the practical sciences. We see the young being 



