STATE ZOOLOGIST. 5 
Certainly no zoélogist will complain that this law is too nar- 
row and irrational, for section 3 alone commands for him a 
field so wide as to call for all lines of zodlogical investigation. 
There are, however, certain lines of investigation universally 
recognized as coming particularly within the scope of such 
state surveys. But even such investigations almost invariably 
demand others that at first sight seem foreign. 
The intensely practical man is almost always really the most 
unpractical, and the greatest obstacle to progress. He will pooh 
—pooh the investigation of the habits and life history and 
structure of an unpalatable sucker or the ‘‘insignificant” 
stickle back and demand the investigation of the bass and 
other food fish only, entirely loosing sight of the fact that the 
one serves as food for some of his favorite fish and the other 
wages ruinous war against them. 
Many similar examples clearly show up the folly of trying to 
consider only that which we can immediately utilize, and usu- 
ally convince the short-sighted that we can not intelligently 
and successfully manage the one in ignorance of the other. 
Too many of us forget that what we now call applied science 
was at one time considered pure science, and that it is a ques- 
tion whether the Edisons or the, Webers, Faradays and Frank- 
lins have done most for the comfort of mankind, and whether 
the zodlogists, who through years of patient work gathered 
the life histories of many of our parasites, thus dispelling the 
dark cloud of superstition and suggesting a rational treatment 
for many diseases and giving to every one the simplest means 
of protection, should not be classed among the most practical. 
If the results of the patient work of honest investigators of 
past generations are to-day wielded by the most mechanical 
laborer, what is to keep the work of the so called scientist 
from becoming a tool for the comfort and happiness of future 
generations ? Indeed are we not reminded on all sides that 
the more thorough our knowledge of the things and phe- 
nomena about us becomes through observation and experi 
ment, the better do we utilize them and the more uniform and 
generally accepted become our interpretations. And does the 
intellectual work and triumph mean nothing to any or allof us? 
The universe is a whole and not a collection of absolute in. 
dependents, and no line or kind of work, however purely 
scientific it may appear at the time, can be carried on without 
sooner or later becoming evident and universally tangible in 
some practical form. 
