IOWA x\CADEMY OF SCIENCES. 21 



specialist and the quack are not distinguishable by the masses 

 the results are often lamentable. 



It is said that the crank^i and irrational enthusiasts initiate 

 all reform, not the sober, scientific minds; that the scientific 

 mind is conservative and never leads a reform. If this were 

 true, nevertheless it is always the sober, common- sense ideas 

 that really accomplish the final good. Reformers are too often 

 impracticable men. It requires all the best scientific methods 

 combined with the best judgoaent to achieve the final results 

 and eradicate the evils that follow in the wake of every 

 reformer. We need not so much reformers, for there are 

 plenty of them, but rather the application of scientific meth- 

 ods to the solving cf human problems. 



The charge is often made that the theoretical sciences are 

 not practical; that they have no direct bearing on the pursuit 

 of health, wealth, and happiness; that they yield no results of 

 value adequate to the time and labor spent on them. Not long 

 ago a bright young scientist lamented to me the fact that bis 

 chosen line of work, systematic botany, was so useless, and 

 that biologists in general contributed nothing to the welfare of 

 1he human race. It is said that Louis Agassiz made the pro- 

 fession of naturalist respectable in America. Before his time 

 it had been barely tolerated. While scientists of to-day are con- 

 sidered equally worthy with other citizens, jet if their libors 

 do nob directly materialize in glittering gold they are evv3ry- 

 where confronted with the question, "Of what good is it?" 

 And. owing to the peculiarities of the questioner, very frequsntly 

 no satisfactory answer can be given. But an answer is needed. 



The teaching of that only which is directly practical tends 

 to swamp ail progressive ideas. To restrict our energies to 

 the already known is to degenerate. The cry, " Give us prac- 

 tical Studies" is a note of warniog. It means stagnatiEg ten- 

 dencies. To concentrate our energies on practical details 1oo 

 often mearjs to ignore broader relations. We see a wonderful 

 development of technical schools and appliances for the study 

 of the applied arts. To many th^s seems the scientific goal. 

 Many believe that all our energies should be directed to the 

 promoting of the applied sciences, and that the day of theoret- 

 ical science is past. So we heiir demands for manual training 

 departments of our public schools; demands that the literary 

 and general culture of school life shall be minimized for the 

 enlargement of the practical sciences. We see the young being 



