668 A Plea for Pure Science. [November, 
be worth working for, and the successful competitor will be 
honoured accordingly. The chivalric spirit which prompted 
Faraday to devote his life to the study of nature may actuate 
a few noble men to give their life to scientific work; but, if 
we wish to cultivate this highest class of men in science, 
we must open a career for them worthy of their efforts. 
Jenny Lind, with her beautiful voice, would have culti- 
vated it to some extent in her native village ; yet who would 
expeCt her to travel over the world, and give concerts for 
nothing ? and how would she have been able to do so if she 
had wished ? And so the scientific man, whatever his 
natural talents, must have instruments and a library, and a 
suitable and respectable salary to live upon, before he is able 
to exert himself to his full capacity. This is true of advance 
in all the higher departments of human learning, and yet 
something more is necessary. It is not those in this country 
who receive the largest salary, and have positions in the 
richest colleges, who have advanced their subject the most : 
men receiving the highest salaries, and occupying the pro- 
fessor’s chair, are to-day doing absolutely nothing in Pure 
Science, but are striving by the commercial applications of 
their science to increase their already large salary. Such 
pursuits, as I have said before, are honourable in their 
proper place ; but the duty of a professor is to advance his 
science, and to set an example of pure and true devotion to 
it which shall demonstrate to his students and the world 
that there is something high and noble worth living for. 
Money-changers are often respectable men, and yet they 
were once severely rebuked for carrying on their trade in the 
court of the Temple. 
Wealth does not constitute a university, buildings do not : 
it is the men who constitute its faculty, and the students 
who learn from them. It is the last and highest step which 
the mere student takes. He goes forth into the world, and 
the height to which he rises has been influenced by the 
ideals which he has consciously or unconsciously imbibed 
in his university. If the professors under whom he has 
studied have been high in their profession, and have them- 
selves had high ideals ; if they have considered the advance 
of their particular subject their highest work in life, and are 
themselves honoured for their intellect throughout the world, 
— the student is drawn toward that which is highest, and 
ever after in life has high ideals. But if the student is 
taught by what are sometimes called good teachers, and 
teachers only, who know little more than the student, and 
who are often surpassed and even despised by him, no one can 
