GENERAL PAPERS 53 



less forcibly by teachers of a generation ago, who held that 

 about all that was needed for the millenium was to let every- 

 bo ly experiment. 



If an upsetting of our theory were all that is involved in 

 this new conception of the laboratory, we might dismiss the 

 subject with a smile for the impracticability of our youthful 

 beliefs. But this is not all. When once the man who runs 

 gets hold of this gossip of the science teachers, he will run in 

 another direction. The motive for the most expensive part of 

 school and college buildings — I mean the science laboratory — 

 will be gone and he will act upon his new knowledge to vote 

 no more such expenditures. 



5. The Future of Popular Science. — For what I have 

 stated, you will see that I believe a future is desirable for popu- 

 lar science. Shall there be one, more significant than anything 

 of the past? Or shall it be, like the traditional apple in the 

 hands of the small boy, without a core? Is it worth while for 

 men of science, such as those of the Academy, to seek by more 

 worthy methods to appeal to the wonder instinct of the people ? 

 Or is a people that knows the movies and the cabarets lost to 

 the possibility of wonder? I believe that by giving the people 

 something it can understand in the newer terms of a more 

 sound science we can make, if we will, a better partnership 

 between the investigator and the public. We can use the 

 movies themselves. Each member of such academies as ours 

 can serve as the apostle to his own community. By lectures 

 or by simple courses of study, not too long, the interest of the 

 people may be stimulated and they may be given something 

 worth while. Suppose we were to copy from the schools of 

 agriculture a few lessons and that we were to distribute to the 

 constituents of our schools pamphlets beginning something 

 like this : 



"Your children are receiving at school the vocabulary of 

 modern science. This vocabulary is not an end in itself, but 

 the means of further education from science texts, newspapers 

 and government publications. If you desire it, the men of 

 science of Illinois will give you, too, this vocabulary in an 

 understandable form. They believe that by informing your- 

 self more fully you will be able better to judge the needs of 



