Men of Science and the General Public. 205 



dilettante, or worse, the charlatan, is often much nearer the 

 public than the genuine man of science, and the inability 

 to discriminate, sometimes results in disaster in which both 

 science and the public suffer. 



In venturing to suggest some possible remedies for this 

 condition of things, it will be logical, if not important, to 

 roughly define the two classes under consideration, the sci. 

 entific and the non-scientific. One is the great majority, the 

 general public, including in the United States over sixty 

 millions of people in all conditions, cultured and uncultured, 

 educated and uneducated, but in average intelligence, we 

 are proud to say, superior to the people of any nation in the 

 world. Out of these it is not easy to sift by definition, the 

 small minority properly known as men of science. Only a 

 rough approximation may be reached by an examination of 

 the membership of scientific societies. 



The American Association for the Advancement of Sci- 

 ence, includes in its membership about two thousand per- 

 sons. It is well known, however, that many of these are 

 not actually engaged in scientific pursuits, either profession- 

 ally or otherwise ; indeed it is one of the important functions 

 of the society to gather into its fold as many of this class as 

 . possible. The fellowship of the association is limited how- 

 ever, by its constitution, to such members as are profession- 

 ally engaged in science, or have by their labors aided in ad- 

 vancing science. They number about seven hundred, but 

 in this case it is equally well known that the list falls far 

 short of including all Americans, who by their labors in 

 science, are justly entitled to a place in any roll of scientific 

 men. On the whole, it would not, perhaps, be a gross ex- 

 aggeration to say, that not more than one in fifty thousand 

 of our population could be properly placed upon the list, 

 even with a liberal interpretation of terms. 



In this estimate it is not intended, of course, to include 

 that large clas3 of active workers whose energies are devoted 

 to the advancement of applied science. Although their 

 methods are often the result of scientific training, and while 

 the solution of their problems requires much knowledge of 



