598 HENRY A. ROWLAND 



wealth of the country, before much can be done in pure science. The 

 successful sculptor or painter naturally attains to wealth through the 

 legitimate work of his profession. The novelist, the poet, the musician, 

 all have wealth before them as the end of a successful career. But the 

 scientist and the mathematician have no such incentive to work: they 

 must earn their living by other pursuits, usually teaching, and only 

 devote their surplus time to the true pursuit of their science. And 

 frequently, by the small salary which they receive, by the lack of instru- 

 mental and literary facilities, by the mental atmosphere in which they 

 exist, and, most of all, by their low ideals of life, they are led to devote 

 their surplus time to applied science or to other means of increasing 

 their fortune. How shall we, then, honor the few, the very few, who, in 

 spite of all difficulties, have kept their eyes fixed on the goal, and have 

 steadily worked for pure science, giving to the world a most precious 

 donation, which has borne fruit in our greater knowledge of the 

 universe and in the applications to our physical life which have enriched 

 thousands and benefited each one of us? There are also those who have 

 every facility for the pursuit of science, who have an ample salary and 

 every appliance for work, yet who devote themselves to commercial work, 

 to testifying in courts of law, and to any other work to increase their 

 present large income. Such men would be respectable if they gave up 

 the name of professor, and took that of consulting chemist or physicist. 

 And such men are needed in the community. But for a man to occupy 

 the professor's chair in a prominent college, and, by his energy and 

 ability in the commercial applications of his science, stand before the 

 local community as a newspaper exponent of his science, is a disgrace 

 both to him and his college. It is the death-blow to science in that 

 region. Call him by his proper name, and he becomes at once a useful 

 member of the community. Put in his place a man who shall by pre- 

 cept and example cultivate his science, and how different is the result! 

 Young men, looking forward into the world for something to do, see 

 before them this high and noble life, and they see that there is some- 

 thing more honorable than the accumulation of wealth. They are thus 

 led to devote their lives to similar pursuits, and they honor the professor 

 who has drawn them to something higher than they might otherwise 

 have aspired to reach. 



I do not wish to be misunderstood in this matter. It is no disgrace 

 to make money by an invention, or otherwise, or to do commercial 

 scientific work under some circumstances; but let pure science be the 

 aim of those in the chairs of professors, and so prominently the aim that 



