July 16, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



47 



peculiar importance and offer their own 

 peculiar opportunities. If every musician 

 aspired to play the pipe organ or to conduct 

 a fifty-piece orchestra, it woiild indeed be 

 an expensive and ambitious undertaking to 

 become a musician. But some of the finest 

 music is produced on the simplest instru- 

 ments, or by the unaided voice; and it should 

 be remembered likewise that successful re- 

 search depends more upon the industry and 

 personality of the man who engages in it than 

 upon the apparatus which he may have at 

 his disposal. 



If college men are not recognized as research 

 workers, it is because they do not produce; 

 and if they do not produce, it is because they 

 do not have it in them to do so, or else it is 

 because they do not try. 



The institution represented by the writer 

 is not wealthy, but it is illustrative that, out 

 of a dozen or more pieces of research in 

 physics undertaken within as many years, 

 only two have called ui>on any assistance 

 whatever in the way of equipment from out- 

 side sources. Eight-minded college authori- 

 ties (and there are such) are not averse to 

 making some reasonable provision for re- 

 search work. I have observed that presidents 

 and trustees gauge their appropriations 

 largely by the confidence which they have in 

 the man asking for equipment, in the wisdom 

 and economy of his selections, in the uses 

 to which he is likely to put the material 

 purchased, and in the care which he is likely 

 to take of it; and if they know that he will 

 take every precaution to save the institution 

 unwarranted exjiense, that fact will go a long 

 way toward liberalizing their policy. Prob- 

 lems can be selected that depend upon dili- 

 gence, care and skill, rather than upon elab- 

 orate apparatus. 



A most encouraging circumstance also is 

 the fact that there are great research agencies 

 which have expressed themselves as only too 

 glad to lend a hand in any worth-while prob- 

 lem that the college man may wish to enter 

 upon. This is true of the great universities 

 themselves; it is true of the !N"ational Re- 

 search Council. To test this point, let any 



competent college scientist who genuinely 

 wishes to do research work, but who lacks 

 certain essential items of equipment, confer 

 with the head of the appropriate department 

 in this or any other graduate university, or 

 make known his needs to the Ifational Re- 

 search Council at Washington, and discover 

 how readily these institutions will give him, 

 not only their material cooperation, but the 

 best of their wisdom as well, in the problem 

 to which he is addressing himself. The 

 Research Council has even gone so far as to 

 initiate a sort of bureau of exchange of 

 research apparatus for the assistance of 

 workers in just such cases. And the writer 

 finds it difficult to express his appreciation of 

 the ready liberality, and evidence of confi- 

 dence, with which his own alma mater has 

 supplied the somewhat heavy demands that 

 some of his more recent work has made upon 

 her resources. 



A common plea among non-productive 

 scientists is that they do not have time. 

 That excuse is threadbare and in tatters. 

 Men have time for what ever is worth while 

 in the exercise of their powers. The amount 

 of work a man can accomplish depends ujwn 

 his determination and upon how well he has 

 learned to systematize his day or his week. 

 I am convinced that no college man, or uni- 

 versity man either, can make real progress 

 iu research without setting apart a definite 

 portion of his program for that exclusive 

 purpose, and then sticking to it even to the 

 extent of locking his doors, if necessary, 

 against interruption while he is so engaged. 



It often happens, however, that the worst 

 intruder is one's own temptation to depart 

 from his schedule. The research period ar- 

 rives. There is a pile of test papers on his 

 desk to be corrected, or a pile of ashes in his 

 cellar to be carried out. Why not let the 

 research go this week? After aU, the re- 

 search is only a side-issue. To minimize 

 this, the writer has several times adopted the 

 expedient of getting one or two college stu- 

 dents to register for " advanced laboratory 

 work" along the line of his own research, the 

 laboratory period coming at regidar scheduled 



