PROFESSORS AND PRACTICAL MEN 31 
At the head of our educational system stand the universities. 
A university is (or should be), in essence, a mine and a mart 
for the highest learning. It was in its origin an adjunct 
to those callings which made the greatest demand upon the 
powers of thought. You may put it more picturesquely, no 
doubt, but it suits my purpose best to use homely terms ; for 
I believe too little stress has been placed upon the real 
beginning, and the original purpose, of universities, as 
institutions standing in direct relationship to definite callings. 
It is, I believe, because our university system has not kept 
pace with the great changes that have taken place in the 
character of human occupations that universities have failed 
to secure, or to retain, the sympathy of a large section of 
the community. The great delay in the development of 
research and of instruction in Natural Science in the univer- 
sities led to a corresponding delay in the dissemination of 
elementary scientific knowledge through our schools; and, in 
consequence, we find to-day in the older generation of our 
more educated citizens—to say nothing of the less educated 
ones—a whole legion of men whose knowledge of science would 
not correspond in terms of their grammar to knowing the 
difference between a noun and an adjective, in their geography 
the difference between latitude and longitude, and in their 
Latin to that between Cicero and Caesar. Now [I lay great 
stress upon this lack of the general dissemination of scientific 
knowledge, because people sometimes say to me that, after 
all, we have surely had many distinguished men of science 
in our universities for generations past. It istrue. But they 
were not preparing a market for their wares; they were 
elaborating in their seclusion something which was utterly 
mysterious to the average man. Even to-day people come 
occasionally into my laboratory with the air of men entering 
a hall of mystery or a chamber of horrors, fearful of what 
may befall them. Again, people say to me, surely the 
