96 PROCEEDINGS OF TWENTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



life of the man of business and commerce may be advantageously spent. 

 The Government has as its mission, by providing order, security, and a 

 general open field, to give just such opportunity to individual life. It 

 takes cognizance of interests and materials which exist on a scale too 

 large for individuals to control. What the Government has done in the 

 matter of rivers and harbors, canals, light-houses, etc., sets the standard 

 and affirms the principle for other activities of men outside the range 

 of commerce. 



Germany has led the other nations of the world in appreciation of 

 what science can do in promoting the interests of different departments 

 of business industry. Germany's present commercial advance is 

 directly traceable to the scientific activities long cultivated in the 

 obscurity and quiet of the universities. Not until a solid foundation 

 was laid in genuine scientific method and result was the application of 

 the results attempted. We used to think Germany a land of idealists 

 and romancers and bookworms; but Germany developed, through its 

 men of ideas and men of patient toil at books and in laboratories, a 

 standard of scientific work which made possible, when these sciences 

 came to be applied to the plain things of life, a tremendous forward 

 push in manufacture, forestry, agriculture, and almost every form of 

 practical art, which had distanced almost with a spurt every near com- 

 petitor. England has been losing in the race of recent years, not from 

 lack of capital, not from lack of commercial opportunity, not from lack 

 of honest and industrious men, but almost exclusively from over-confi- 

 dence in amateurism. England has retained the services of amateurs 

 in its army, in its governmental positions, in its manufacturing inter- 

 ests, and in the various departments of the arts to such an extent that 

 it now on the sudden wakes up to find the age has sped away from it. 

 Germany has been in the habit of using inferior materials in manufac- 

 ture, and has in general catered to an inferior market. As long as it 

 turned its attention chiefly toward Asia Minor, South America, the East 

 Indies, England felt little solicitude; but suddenly it has burst over the 

 barriers and its products are entering the best markets. The advantage 

 which Germany has in this last stage of the race is traceable directly to 

 the employment of expert workmanship in the arts of specialists, in the 

 specialized lines of industry, and to the use, frankly and fully, of the best 

 scientific results attainable for application to any work that is to be done. 



We have been reluctantly following in the wake of Germany in this 

 matter of recognizing expert service and scientific information. The 

 American, in his fine admiration for all-roundness and gumption, has 

 been all too unwilling to vacate the throne of all wisdom concerning all 

 subjects. The expert, whether it be in business matters, in political 

 matters, or in matters that belong properly in the domain of science, 

 has been too slowly given a hearing. The average American thinks he 



