680 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 
This it is impossible to get the public to understand even when it 
has undergone the process which we call education. You may estab- 
lish paid posts for scientific research, but you can not be sure that 
you will get research, for science is ike the wind that bloweth where 
it listeth, and that is what our educated public do not like. They 
want something for their cash, and they will not wait. 
Even those who are aware of the immense value of pure research 
forget the fact that the aptitude for scientific investigation is as rare 
as the gift of poetry, to which in many respects it is allied, for both 
are creative gifts, rare and precious. They forget that it is impos- 
sible to ascertain without trial whether a man possesses it or not, and 
that this trial can only be made when he has passed his student days 
and looks to support himself by his own exertions. To provide for 
this support money is needed, and studentships must be established 
in considerable numbers, from the holders of which those who show 
that they possess the gift of research can be selected and promoted 
to higher posts in which their gift can find full opportunity; but we 
“want more than this—we want compensation for those whom we 
have encouraged to make the trial and who have failed to show that 
they possess the gift, and an outlet by which they can emerge and 
find work in practical life. 
This has been and is a difficulty in all schools of science, for many 
are called but few are chosen. ‘The situation is this: It is desirable 
that a large body of able young men should be encouraged to take 
up scientific research, but as experience has shown that only a small 
proportion of them will possess the qualities by which success in re- 
search can be attained, and as it is undesirable to encumber the pro- 
gress and the literature of science by a host of workers who have no 
real capacity for research, it results that a time will arrive when a 
great proportion of those whom we have encouraged to give some of 
the best years of their life to this unremunerative work should be in- 
vited to find other occupations. What is to be done? We can not 
throw them into thestreet. Some compensation must be given. There 
are two ways in which this can be done. One is.the system of prize 
fellowships, which has for long been in vogue at the old universities, 
and which it has of late been the custom of those who have not really 
studied the matter to decry. Nevertheless, it is a good system, for 
it provides an income by which those who have given some of the 
best years of their life to this trial of their capacity can support 
themselves while they qualify for taking part in a_ practical 
profession. 
A prize fellowship system, or something like it, is a necessary 
accompaniment of a university which induces a large number of young 
men to follow for a time the intellectual life; it acts both as an in- 
ducement and a compensation, and it would be a mistake and an 
