IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 25 



the label, investigator, upon too much crude material. To 

 quote President Coulter: "Teachers assume a serious respon- 

 sibility in urging born hod carriers to become architects." 



I do not wish to be understood as decrying original research 

 or specialization of studies. On the contrary, I believe every 

 earnest thinker needs to concentrate his energies now and then 

 on special investigation, but every act in specialization should 

 rest on a foundation of broad culture. No scientist should be 

 content to pass off the field of activity without leaving the store 

 of human knowledge richer for his having lived. If we consult 

 the life records of those who have done most to put the various 

 branches of science on a broad rational basis, we see that they 

 have been men who have got at the heart of nature through 

 special investigations.' Only those who have labored them- 

 selves can rightly interpret the labors of others. Knowledge 

 is not the goal. Truth for truth's sake may be good, but not 

 best. Unrelated ideas are as valueless as mummies buried 

 beyond all discovery. We are making an egregious mistake 

 when in our teaching or researches we emphasize a detail here 

 and a detail there and utterly fail to find any relationships. 

 Yet this is just what is done over and over again by our so-called 

 investigators. Year after year they extol their special hobbies 

 and lament that the world calls them visionary. 



I believe in the popularization of science. It would be entirely 

 out of place for me to assume that any member of this academy 

 believed in what is known as popular science, which in fact is 

 usually no science at all. I believe that science should be made 

 popular, not by prostituting its aims and methods to the pleas- 

 ing of public fancy, but by educating the masses in the methods 

 and applications of science. Correct thinking is prerequisite 

 to correct acting. Yet how often do we labor simply to reform 

 the acting! Comparatively speaking, of what lasting good can 

 be the triumphs of science of our day if only the purely practi- 

 cal results impress themselves on the public mind? If our dis- 

 coveries, little and big, are to be applied as so many patent 

 nostrums how meager the results! If the rationale of sciecce is 

 to be restricted to the sphere of the highly educated classes 

 and the wonderful results of research are to be regarded as 

 empirical by the masses, how discouraging the prospect to one 

 who has at heart the welfare of the whole race ! Pasteur and 

 others have well nigh succeeded in placing medical science on 

 a rational basis, yet how few comprehend the actual state of 



