260 On the Campus 



micro-organisms in a drop of water and strove to refute 

 the idea of spontaneous generation, he did not know that 

 he was laying the foundation for a science that would 

 one day, as bacteriology, overturn the accepted hygiene 

 of the world. He engaged simply in a bit of pure re- 

 search, and the outcome is as we see. Even our fine 

 apochromatic lenses we owe to men called amateurs, 

 lovers, who sought to resolve the markings on the walls of 

 minutest plants, the diatoms. 



In 1845 Faraday dreamed of electro-magnetic waves 

 that filled the universe with lines of force, as lines of 

 light; twenty years later Clerk-Maxwell reached the 

 same vision by mathematical equation. But in twenty- 

 five years more, Hertz produced such waves and showed 

 that these followed Faraday's dream and Maxwell's 

 demonstration; outcome so beautiful, so fine, that when 

 at length in 1907 Marconi's wires began to signal across 

 the sea, scientific men, at least, noted it scarce at all ; but 

 the careless public became excited once Faraday's dream 

 came true and his lines followed the Titanic on open sea 

 more closely even than the wire-strung telegraph follows 

 the flying train. 



Science recognizes Marconi oh, yes ! but holds in 

 yet fonder recollection Faraday, Maxwell, and Hertz, 

 who had no slightest ' ' respect unto the recompense of the 

 reward"; could not even forecast it. Science not yet 

 applied, yea science that is yet to be, lies in the domain 

 of pure research. 



But brilliant as this is, there is yet another field in 

 which the human mind may find employ, finer and more 

 fascinating far; I mean the empire of pure thought; the 



