THE DEBT OF THE WORLD TO PURE SCIENCE. 335 



the most of our country's opportunities it must be educated by men 

 who are not compelled to acquire aptness at the cost of vitality. The 

 l^roper relation of teaching- -labor to investigation - labor should be 

 recognized, and investigation, rather than social, religious, or political 

 activity, should be a part of the duty assigned to college instructors. 



Our universities and scientific societies ought to have endowments 

 specifically for aid in research. The fruits of investigations due to 

 Smithson's bequest have multiplied his estate hundreds of times over 

 to the world's advantage. He said well that his name would be remem- 

 bered long after the names and memory of the Percy and Northumber- 

 land families had passed away. Hogkins' bequest to the Smithsonian 

 Institution is still too recent to have borne much fruit, but men already 

 wonder at the fruitfulness of a field supposed to be well explored. 

 Nobel knew how to apply the results of science; utilizing the chemist's 

 results, he applied nitroglycerin to industrial uses; similarly he devel- 

 oped the i^etroleum industry of Eussia and, like that of our American 

 petroleum manufacturers, his influence was felt in many other industries 

 of his own land and of the Continent. At his death he bequeathed 

 millions of dollars to the Swedish Academy of Sciences that the income 

 might be expended in encouraging pure research. Smithsou, Hodg- 

 ■ kins, and IsTobel have marked out a path which should be crowded 

 with Americans. 



The endosvment of research is demanded now as never before. The 

 development of technical education, the intellectual training of men to 

 fit them for positions formerly held by mere tyros, has changed the 

 material conditions in America. The surveyor has disappeared — none 

 but a civil engineer is trusted to lay out even town lots; the founder 

 at an iron furnace is no longer merely a graduate of the casting house — 

 he must be a graduate in metallargy; the manufacturer of paints can 

 not intrust his factory to any but a chemist of recognized standing; 

 no graduate from the pick is placed in charge of mines — a mining 

 engineer alone can gain confidence; and so everywhere. With the will 

 to utilize the results of science there has come an intensity of competi- 

 tion in which victory belongs only to the best equipped. The profit 

 awaiting successfnl inventors is greater than ever, and the anxious 

 readiness to apply scientific discoveries is shown by the daily records. 

 The Eontgen rays were seized at once and efforts made to find profit- 

 able application; the properties of zirconia and other earths interested 

 inventors as soon as they were announced ; the possibility of tele- 

 graphing without wires incited inventors everywhere as soon as the 

 principle was discovered. 



Nature's secrets are still unknown and the field for investigation is 

 as broad as ever. We are only on the threshold of discovery, and the 

 coming century will disclose wonders far beyond any yet disclosed. 

 The atmosphere, studied by hundreds of chemists and physicists for a 

 full century, jDroved for Eayleigh and Eamsay an unexplored field 



