NATIONAL GEOLOGICAL SURVEY — RANSOME. 279 
mind under conditions that continually force the scientific men in 
Government service to recognize painfully how inadequate at present 
is the stipend upon which he had existed before the war. It is all 
very well to insist that the scientific man does not work for money 
and should not trouble his thoughts with such an unworthy con- 
sideration. Nevertheless if he is to do the best of which he is capable, 
he must be lifted above the grind of poverty, be able to give his chil- 
dren those educational advantages that he can so well appreciate, 
have opportunity for mental cultivation, and feel his social position 
to be such that he can mingle without humiliation with his intel- 
lectual peers. If it is destructive to the scientific spirit to set up 
material gain as an object, it may be equally blighting to scientific 
achievement to force the attention continually downward to the 
problem of meager existence. The normal scientific man usually has 
other human beings dependent upon him, and the traditional spirit of 
self-sacrifice and the indifference to material reward that are com- 
monly attributed to the true investigator may, when these members 
of his family are considered, come very close to selfishness. 
However, salary, important as it is, is by no means the only deter- 
minant. If it is reasonably adequate, most men who are animated 
by the spirit of science will find additional reward in their work 
itself if this is felt to be worthy of their best efforts. A man of first- 
rate scientific ability, however, will not enter an organization in 
which consecutive application to a problem is thwarted, in which 
he is expected to turn to this or that comparatively unimportant 
task as political expediency may dictate, or in which the general 
atmosphere is unfavorable to the initiation and prosecution of re- 
search problems of any magnitude. If a man of the type in mind 
finds himself in such an uncongenial environment, he is likely to go 
elsewhere. The final effect upon the organization will be that its 
scientific staff' will be mediocre or worse and it will become chiefly 
a statistical and engineering bureau from which leadership in 
geology will have departed. 
If, on the other hand, a 3'^oung geologist can feel that every possible 
opportunity and encouragement will be given to him in advancing 
the science of geology; that results on the whole will be considered 
more important than adherence to a schedule ; that imagination and 
originality will be more highly valued than routine efficiency or 
mere executive capacity; that he will not be diverted to tasks for 
which, important as they may be, his training and inclination do not 
particularly fit him; that those who direct the organization are 
interested in his development and will give him all possible oppor- 
tunity to demonstrate his power of growth; and that appreciation 
and material reward will be in proportion to his scientific achieve- 
