IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
21 
specialist and the quack are not distinguishable by the masses 
the results are often lamentable. 
It is said that the cranks and irrational enthusiasts initiate 
all reform, not the sober, scientific minds; that the scientific 
mind is conservative and never leads a reform. If this were 
true, nevertheless it is always the sober, common-sense ideas 
that really accomplish the final good. Reformers are too often 
impracticable men. It requires all the best scientific methods 
combined with the best judgment to achieve the final results 
and eradicate the evils that follow in the wake of every 
reformer. We need not so much reformers, for there are 
plenty of them, but rather the application of scientific meth- 
ods to the solving of human problems. 
The charge is often made that the theoretical sciences are 
not practical; that they have no direct bearing on the pursuit 
of health, wealth, and happiness; that they yield no results of 
value adequate to the time and labor spent on them. Not long 
ago a bright young scientist lamented to me the fact that bis 
chosen line of work, systematic botany, was so useless, and 
that biologists in general contributed nothing to the welfare of 
the human race. It is said that Louis Agassiz made the pro- 
fession of naturalist respectable in America. Before his time 
it ha.d been barely tolerated. While scientists of to-day are con- 
sidered equally worthy with other citizens, yet if their labors 
do not directly materialize in glittering gold they are every- 
where confronted with the question, “Of what good is it?” 
And, owing to the peculiarities of the questioner, very frequently 
no satisfactory answer can be given. But an answer is needed. 
The teaching of that onkT- which is directly practical tends 
to swamp ail progressive ideas. To restrict our energies to 
the already known is to degenerate. The cry, “ Give us prac- 
tical studies” is a note of warning. It means stagnating ten- 
dencies. To concentrate our energies on practical details too 
often means to ignore broader relations. We see a wonderful 
development of technical schools and appliances for the study 
of the applied arts. To many this seems the scientific goal. 
Many believe that all our energies should be directed to the 
promoting of the applied sciences, and that the day of theoret- 
ical science is past. So we hear demands for m.anual training 
departments of our public schools; demands that the literacy 
and general culture of school life shall be minimized for the 
enlargement of the practical sciences. We see the young being 
