1883.] A Plea for Pure Science . 669 
doubt the lowered tone of his mind. He finds that by his 
feeble efforts he can surpass one to whom a university has 
given its highest honour ; and he begins to think that he 
himself is a born genius, and the incentive to work is gone. 
He is great by the side of the molehill, and does not know 
any mountain to compare himself with. 
A university should not only have great men in its faculty, 
but have numerous minor professors and assistants of all 
kinds, and should encourage the highest work, if for no other 
reason than to encourage the student to his highest efforts. 
But, assuming that the professor has high ideals, wealth 
such as only a large and high university can command is 
necessary to allow him the fullest development. 
And this is specially so in our science of physics. In the 
early days of physics and chemistry, many of the funda- 
mental experiments could be performed with the simplest 
apparatus. And so we often find the names of Wollaston 
and Faraday mentioned as needing scarcely anything for 
their researches. Much can even now be done with the 
simplest apparatus; and nobody, except the utterly incom- 
petent, need stop for want of it. But the faCt remains, that 
one can only be free to investigate in all departments of 
chemistry and physics, when he not only has a complete 
laboratory at his command, but a friend to draw on for the 
expenses of each experiment. That simplest of the depart- 
ments of physics, namely, astronomy, has now reached such 
perfection that nobody can expeCt to do much more in it 
without a perfectly equipped observatory ; and even this 
would be useless without an income sufficient to employ a 
corps of assistants to make the observations and computa- 
tions. But even in this simplest of physical subjects, there 
is great misunderstanding. Our country has very many 
excellent observatories : and yet little work is done in com- 
parison, because no provision has been made for maintaining 
the work of the observatory ; and the wealth which, if con- 
centrated, might have made one effective observatory which 
would prove a benefit to astronomical science, when scattered 
among a half-dozen, merely furnishes telescopes for the 
people in the surrounding region to view the moon with. 
And here I strike the keynote of at least one need of our 
country, if she would stand well in Science ; and the fol- 
lowing item, which I clip from a newspaper, will illustrate 
the matter : — 
“The eccentric old Canadian, Arunah Huntington, who 
left 200,000 dols. to be divided among the public scools of 
Vermont, has done something which will be of little practical 
