324 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 3 8 



be assured and if better methods can be found for publishing their 

 works and of making these works more available. 



To these young men and women who are hesitating in the choice 

 of a future career, that of the research worker is here recommended 

 for consideration. It means a lifetime of devotion to a cause which 

 probably will bring neither fame nor fortune. One who chooses it 

 must find most of its rewards within himself. He must leave the 

 easy highways of the valley and be prepared to climb, first, the 

 winding mountain roads that others before him have graded and made 

 easy, then the upper mountain trails with occasional vistas that will 

 give him a promise of what is ahead if he continues to climb. Finally, 

 he will come out onto the bare, wind-swept, rock ledges above the 

 timber line, marked only by rock cairns of those who have ventured 

 before him. The broadened view may hold him for a time, but he 

 will surely feel the urge to press on to the eternal snows of the moun- 

 tain peak ahead. There, he will find no trail to guide him, and he 

 must push on through the fresh snow, leaving behind footprints for 

 others to follow if they will. He knows well that he will never reach 

 the summit, but the urge to go forward is all-compelling. When he 

 has gone on to the limit of his strength and sinks down on the snow- 

 fields, he will feel within him, whether the world says "Well done" 

 or not, that he has been true to the inner urge of his own soul and his 

 reward is in the knowledge that he has carried the standard of science 

 a little further into the unknown. 



