could hardly understand what keeps him there. Many 

 of the objects which rivet his attention might appear to 

 you utterly trivial ; and, if you were to step forward and 

 ask him what is the use of his work, the chances are' that 

 you would confound him He might not be able to ex- 

 press the use of it in intelligible terms. He might 

 not be able to assure you that it will put a dollar 

 into the pocket of any human being living or to come. 

 That scientific discovery may put not only dollars into 

 the pockets of individuals, but millions into the excheq- 

 uers of nations, the history of science amply proves ; but 

 the hope of its doing so is not the motive power of the in- 

 vestigator. It never can be his motive power." 



This high idea of the dignity of the scientific vocation 

 is as yet not fully comprehended in our country, and 

 hence such really rare men as Kirk wood, the astronomer, 

 who has across the sea been termed " the Kepler of 

 America," is forced to earn a beggarly salary by elemen- 

 tarv teaching in a western college, though his fine abili- 

 ties and extraordinary acquirements are needed in a much 

 wider field. He has been taught the bitter lesson which 

 Agassiz early learned when he said before coming to 

 America, "I learned early that, where one has no fort- 

 une, one cannot serve science and at the same time live 

 in the world." All honor to the noble men of Boston 

 who enabled him to live in the world, and for it. 



The men who, often in obloquy and poverty, discover 

 through difficult, intricate, and laborious processes great 

 laws of nature, are seldom rewarded while living, their mon- 

 uments and their fame rising only when they have passed 

 away. The real pioneers but " blaze the way," to use a 

 frontier expression. When a McAdamized road is built, 

 and all the world is pleasantly traveling over it, their dan- 

 gers and labors are forgotten. There is no preferred stock 

 for them, and in declaring dividends they are not includ- 

 ed. Patents are not granted to, nor privileges conferred on, 

 men who spend their lives in microscopic examination of 



infusoria, in dissecting; animals, resolving nebulas or watch- 

 es ' o 



ins comets. As Prof. Youmans has said " The devotion 



