352 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 374. 



told all of them of the diiferent research en- 

 dowments with which I was acquainted and 

 m.entioned especially the two funds in which 

 I know Professor Pickering is interested as a 

 trustee. However, I think not one of these 

 persons applied for an appropriation from 

 these funds. 



I have sought the reasons for this, and I 

 believe the chief one is that each person feels 

 that in case such funds are granted he will 

 be expected to give in return some tangible 

 result or discovery, and who can tell when 

 entering an unknown country whether any- 

 thing will be discovered worthy of the name? 

 The student may be compared to De Soto en- 

 tering a new country in search of gold. He 

 may find nothing but seemingly interminable 

 forests, passage through which is beset by 

 pain and even danger, and he may return dis- 

 couraged without the expected gold, his work 

 being regarded by himself and by the friends 

 who helped him as an absolute failure. And 

 yet, as De Soto discovered a land the great 

 forests of which returned more value in gold 

 than the wildest dream of the explorer, and 

 where fertile valleys now support a population 

 whose total wealth must be counted by niil- 

 lions of dollars, so a student seemingly find- 

 ing nothing may really have discovered facts 

 which a succeeding generation will consider 

 of inestimable value. Even negative results 

 are frequently of great value in pointing out 

 the true road to the subsequent explorer. In 

 my opinion, then, research funds should be 

 administered in the broad spirit that all re- 

 sults are valuable, and while the funds should 

 made to feel that all that is required of him is 

 be granted judiciously, the student should be 

 an earnest effort in quest of truth and a 

 guarantee that such an effort has been made. 



The feeling that the trustees of these funds 

 expect definite results has, I know, in my own 

 case, except in one instance, deterred me 

 from asking for grants. Many lines of 

 investigation suggest themselves to me, 

 and some of them I feel might be approved 

 by the trustees, but I cannot be sure that the 

 results will be what I had hoped or even 

 worthjr of publication; so I refrain from ask- 

 ing for grants, preferring to spend my own 



money, however inadequate, in order that I 

 may be free to publish results when I have 

 any worthy of publication, and refrain when I 

 have none. 



Another reason why students do not apply 

 for research endowments is because they are 

 usually grknted in sums so small as to be 

 entirely inadequate for the work. No one can 

 estimate exactly, and usually not even ap- 

 proximately, how much money it will take to 

 penetrate an unknown region or attain an un- 

 known result. He may find that if he accepts 

 a small amount it will prove only adequate to 

 allow him to learn the difficulties of the situa- 

 tion, and yet insufficient to allow him to 

 obtain any results whatever. A remedy would 

 be to give larger and l,ess numerous amounts, 

 or assure the student of more if the prelimi- 

 nary study is promising. 



A third reason why many students do not 

 apply is that most of the grants stipulate that 

 no money must be spent for personal expenses. 

 If a student is not wealthy this requirement 

 means that he must give his best thought and 

 spend the main part of his energy in earning a 

 living, a duty which he cannot shirk, and give 

 to research only the remaining fragments of 

 his time, and perhaps a weary brain. Few care 

 to undertake it. This aspect of the case, from 

 the teacher's standpoint, is given by Professor 

 E. L. Nichols in the article in Science which 

 immediately follows that of Professor Picker- 

 ing (Vol. XIII., p. 203). He says, "The tax 

 upon the nervous system of the proper teach- 

 ing of science is very great, and it is more 

 often the want of surplus energy with which 

 to carry on an investigation, than lack of 

 actual time or of the necessary equipment 

 that defeats us." 



If the student has wealth he does not need 

 endowments and usually does not ask for 

 them, but prefers instead to give them. If 

 all men with equal opportunities were equally 

 capable of research, as is frequently, but 

 erroneously, assumed, this restriction of re- 

 search funds would not matter since the work 

 of research could be left to the classes having 

 wealth and leisure, while the others could do 

 the necessary daily work of the world. But 

 the talents of men are diverse. The military 



