334 THE DEBT OF THE WOELD TO PURE SCIENCE. 



ability is expressed in tlie popular saying that a competent surgeon 

 can saw a bone with a butcher knife and carve muscle with a handsaw. 

 Once, indeed, the physicist needed little aside from a spirit lamp, test 

 tubes, and some platinum wire or foil; low power microscopes, small 

 reflecting telescopes, rude balances, and home-made apparatus certainly 

 did wonderful service in their day; there was a time when the finder of 

 a mineral or fossil felt justified in regarding it as new and in describing 

 it as such ; when a psychologist needed only his own great self as a 

 basis for broad conclusions respecting all mankind. All of that 

 belonged to the infancy of science, when little was known and any 

 observation was liable to be a discovery; when a Humboldt, an Arago, 

 or an Agassiz was possible. But all is changed; workers are multiplied 

 in every land; study in every direction is specialized; men have ceased 

 the mere gathering of facts and have turned to the determination of 

 relations. Long years of preparation are needed to fit one to begin 

 investigation; familiarity with several languages is demanded; great 

 libraries are necessary for constant reference, and costly apparatus is 

 essential even for preliminary examination. Where tens of dollars once 

 supplied the equipment in any branch of science, hundreds, yes, thou- 

 sands, of dollars are required now. 



Failure to appreciate the changed conditions induces neglect to 

 render proper assistance. As matters now stand, even the wealthiest 

 of our educational institutions can not be expected to cai^ry the whole 

 burden, for endowments are insufficient to meet the too rapidly increas- 

 ing demand for wider range of instruction. It is unjust to expect that 

 men, weighted more and more by the duties of science teaching, involv- 

 ing, too often, much physical labor from which teachers of other sub- 

 jects are happily free, should conduct investigations at their own 

 expense and in hours devoted by others to relaxation. Even were the 

 pecuniary cost comparatively small, to impose that would be unjust, 

 for, with few exceptions, the results are given to the world without 

 compensation. Scientific men are accustomed to regard patents much 

 as regular physicians regard advertising. 



America owes much to closet students as well as to educated invent- 

 ors who have been trained in scientific modes of thought. The extraor- 

 dinary development of our material resources'— our manufacturing, 

 mining, and transporting interests — shows that the strengthening of our 

 educational institutions on the scientific side brings actual profit 

 to the community. But most of this strengthening is due i^rimarily 

 to unremunerated toil of men dependent on the meager salary of college 

 instructors or Government officials in subordinate positions. Their 

 aptitude to fit others for usefulness, coming only from long training, 

 was acquired in hours stolen from sleep or from time needed for recupera- 

 tion. But the labors of such men have been so fruitful in results that 

 we can no longer depend on the surplus energy of scientific men, unless 

 we consent to remam stationary. If the rising generation is to make 



