JANUARY 18, 1901.] 
schools. They have asked, and answered 
emphatically in the affirmative, the ques- 
tion: Does education pay; and I believe 
that they are asking and answering the 
other question, Does scientific investigation 
pay, very much in the same fashion. The 
golden stream of benefactions which has 
now for many years been flowing in upon 
educational establishments proves that the 
people firmly believe that education pays. 
They believe in education. 
I have been very much interested to hear 
the quotation from the ‘ Message of Wash- 
ington’ urging upon our people the impor- 
tance of promoting scientific investigation 
and research. I believe that the American 
people are, in increasing numbers, large- 
minded enough to look through and beyond 
the nearer every-day phenomena and to 
realize that the promotion of discovery, no 
less than the promotion of learning, pays 
in every sense of the word. They perceive 
that it pays in the highest sense, in the en- 
richment of intellect and the cultivation of 
faculty. They perceive also that it pays in 
the utilitarian sense, in that it gives leader- 
ship among the nations of the earth in the 
applications of science which always follow 
hard upon the heels of discovery. Profess- 
or Osborn has done well to point out that 
those nations which support research most 
liberally are those which are taking the lead 
in the industrial world to-day. 
Iremember a saying of General Walker’s, 
that he firmly believed that we should out- 
grow the necessity of protection, and we are 
beginning to-day to witness the fulfilment 
of his prediction. The enormous develop- 
ment of our export trade, based upon our 
scientific and economic system of manu- 
factures, arts and industries, marks that 
over-growth of the merely home market and 
local protection which General Walker was 
far-sighted enough to foresee. I believe 
that, if once the people realize what a 
burden and a hindrance is inflicted upon 
SCIENCE. 
93 
scientific research, and thereby upon edu- 
cational and industrial progress, by the 
tariff upon microscopes, dissecting instru- 
ments, models, diagrams and other ap- 
paratus of research and instruction, that 
tariff will melt away like dew before the sun. 
And so it is also, I believe, with the 
relations between pure and applied science. 
The barrier between them is fading away, 
because they are constantly drawing nearer 
together and over-growing one another. 
Pure science has given to applied science 
the fundamental elements of truth, perfec- 
tion, knowledge and skill. Applied science, 
on the other hand, has developed so pro- 
digiously as to react favorably upon pure 
science, furnishing for it rich sustenance 
and fertile soil in which it may flourish. 
An hour might well be spent in pointing 
out not only the aid which pure science has 
given to applied science, but reciprocally 
the enormous development of pure science 
and scientific investigation wrought by 
applied science. It is one of the marvels. 
of the day that many highly organized and 
differentiated industries, and even many of 
the coarser arts, find their narrow but suffi- 
cient basis of profit in the employment of 
the results of latest and most advanced re- 
searches in pure science. 
Our age has been called by one of the 
speakers who has preceded me, a practical 
age, and so it is; but it is an age which has 
discovered in science the Promethean fire. 
The highest and truest utilitarianism of 
to-day is a generous cultivation of scientific 
investigation, not indeed for its own sake, 
but for the sake of the results which are 
sure to follow from it. Asto the pursuit of 
science for its own sake, Professor Osborn 
has, it seems to me, used a happy illustra- 
tion in referring to the scientific investiga- 
tions of the Government as an investment 
rather than an immediate outlay for cur- 
rentexpenses. As to pure science pursued 
strictly for its own sake, I think we may 
