36 JOHN J. STEVENSON 



The misconception respecting the relative importance 

 of investigation is increased by the failure of even well ed- 

 ucated men to appreciate the changed conditions in science. 

 The ordinary notion of scientific ability is expressed in the 

 popular saying that a competent surgeon can saw a bone 

 with a butcher knife and carve a muscle with a handsaw. 

 Once, indeed, the physicist needed little aside from a spirit 

 lamp, test tubes, and some platinum wire or foil; low power 

 microscopes, small reflecting telescopes, rude balances, and 

 homemade apparatus certainly did wonderful service in 

 their day; there was a time when the finder of a mineral 

 or fossil felt justified in regarding it as new and in describ- 

 ing it as such; when a psychologist needed only his own 

 great self as a basis for broad conclusions respecting all man- 

 kind. All of that belonged to the infancy of science, when 

 little was known and any observation was liable to be a dis- 

 covery; when a Humboldt, an Arago, or an Agassiz was pos- 

 sible. But all is changed; workers are multiplied in every 

 land; study in every direction is specialized; men have ceased 

 the mere gathering of facts and have turned to the determin- 

 ation of relations. Long years of preparation are needed 

 to fit one to begin investigation; famiharity with several 

 languages is demanded; great libraries are necessary for con- 

 stant reference, and costly apparatus is essential even for 

 preliminary examination. Where tens of dollars once sup- 

 plied the equipment in any branch of science, hundreds, 

 yes, thousands, of dollars are required now. 



Failure to appreciate the changed conditions induces 

 neglect to render proper assistance. As matters now stand, 

 even the wealthiest of our educational institutions can not 

 be expected to carry the whole burden, for endowments 

 are insufficient to meet the too rapidly increasing demand 

 for wider range of instruction. It is unjust to expect that 

 men, weighted more and more by the duties of science teach- 

 ing, involving, too often, much physical labor from which 

 teachers of other subjects are happily free, should conduct 

 investigations at their own expense and in hours devoted 

 by others to relaxation. Even were the pecuniary cost com- 

 paratively small; to impose that would be unjust, for, with 



