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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1135 



worked out in the various agricultural ex- 

 periment stations. Efficiency points to 

 centralization and coordination. 



The government has stepped in and aided 

 the farmer where he was unable to get the 

 results alone, but the government has not 

 yet deemed it prudent to intervene in be- 

 half of the small manufacturing industries 

 so as to improve their products and put 

 them on a higher plane of efficiency. This 

 could be done by the establishment of a 

 large government institution for chemical 

 and physical research, with departments at 

 least as numerous as the different industries 

 to be aided. 



Instead of the industries being helped 

 by the government, they are actually hin- 

 dered to a certain extent, especially in so 

 far as unsatisfactory patent laws act prej- 

 udically against them. The vast majority 

 of researches carried out in the universities 

 are of such a nature that they have no bear- 

 ing whatever upon present-day industries, 

 and the essential results obtained in pri- 

 vate research laboratories are kept secret 

 so that the small manufacturer will ulti- 

 mately be forced to the wall, unless he can 

 surreptitiously acquire the processes of his 

 wealthier rival. 



Discovery is the aim of research even as 

 it is the aim of all forms of experimenta- 

 tion. Discovery and invention may result 

 upon the most superficial tests which in no 

 sense could be classed as research. In fact, 

 many important and far-reaching discov- 

 eries have been made as results of the 

 crudest form of experimentation, but these 

 are the singular exceptions. The rule is, 

 that any important scientific or industrial 

 advance has been made at the expense of 

 years of experimentation and research 

 along that line, coupled with the knowledge 

 derived from countless other lines of work. 

 One industry dovetails into another like 

 the walls of a house and one science blends 



into another so that it is no longer possible 

 to draw the dividing line. 



Even as the sciences are developed by the 

 contributions of thousands of workers, so 

 each industry must depend for its advance- 

 ment upon the labors and researches of a 

 large number. What an enormous amount 

 of research along many lines must have 

 been carried out to bring the photographic 

 industry to its present high plane of per- 

 fection! From the time that Seheele, 

 Niepce and Daguerre made systematic 

 studies of the actinic properties of silver 

 salts, there has been an uninterrupted 

 search for the hidden treasures in this 

 field. The researches have extended into 

 actinometry, organic and inorganic chem- 

 istry, colloid chemistry, electro chemistry, 

 radioactivity, gelatine, glass, optics, heat, 

 metal plating, mechanics, etc. No man is 

 the discoverer or inventor of modern 

 photography. 



The men who do the pioneer work are 

 usually railed at by the populace ' as im- 

 practical dreamers and scarcely ever live 

 to see the full fruition of their labors. If 

 Daguerre could have had a vision of the 

 tremendous industry that has been reared 

 upon the meager results of his research or 

 if Clerk Maxwell and Hertz could have 

 realized that their theoretical deductions 

 furnished the basis for wireless correspond- 

 ence across oceans, they could have met 

 the attacks of their critics with a compla- 

 cent smile. As an example of one man's 

 contribution to industry, Pasteur is per- 

 haps the most illustrious. 



His thoroughgoing researches discovered 

 the cause and pointed out the remedy for 

 the souring and spoiling of beer, wine and 

 fruit juices, and thus benefited France and 

 other countries to the extent of millions of 

 dollars. He also saved the French silk in- 

 dustry from certain destruction by the 

 pebrine disease of the silkworm. He dis- 



