14 
lOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
Tesulting in great improvements of his apparatus, the distance was increased 
to 18 miles; then to 300 miles, until today we hear of signals being successfully 
sent across the Atlantic Ocean. 
I have thus briefly presented to you the history of Wireless Telegraphy 
so that I might bring before you in a striking manner the mission of the 
pure scientist. History is replete with similar recitals in the various lines of 
scientific research. For more than half a century the pure scientist devoted 
time and energy, with no idea of material remuneration, to thought and ex- 
perimentation, in the phenomena of electric waves. Faraday, Maxwell and 
Hertz! What a magnificent trio of truly learned men! The names of these 
men are rather obscure to the average citizen who rarely gets beyond the daily 
paper, or popular magazine, for information on the achievements in science 
and art. 
These names do not appear in Andrew Carnegie’s list of the world’s twenty 
great men. Carnegie’s list contains the names of such men as Bessemer, Har- 
greaves, Arkwright; men who played the Marconi roll in practical invention. 
Carnegie’s list is just such as one would expect from a self-made pseudo- 
educated man, and refiects accurately the popular judgment of the world’s 
greatest achievements. 
Many have heard of our great Edison but few know anything about Faraday, 
and yet, comparing these two, which one is it that has played a really great 
roll in the progress of civilization? How the masses wonder at the apparently 
wizard achievements of /a Burbank and how little they know of a Darwin! 
It was Darwin who enunciated the great, basic laws of animal and plant life. 
These laws definitely grasped supply the zeal for practical attainment to such 
men as Burbank. Joule worked fifty years before he succeeded in making an 
accurate experimental determination of the mechanical equivalent of heat. 
We know the value of this determination to engineering science of today. 
Should not the name of Joule stand out in equal glory with that of Watt? And 
so we might go on and multiply instances to show that the labors of the pure 
scientist invariably precede the attainment of great practical ends in civili- 
zation. 
The mission of the pure scientist, then, is to prepare the soil, plant the seed 
and cultivate the crop. This he does and rests content with the excellence of 
his labor. The practical inventor gets the harvest which brings to him 
material gain and the plaudits of the masses. And yet, the former is the 
last to envy the latter. It has been truly said that every achievement in 
scientific research, however unrelated to practical ends it may seem at the 
time of its accomplishment, is pregnant with future possibilities in the realm of 
invention. Franklin was once asked this question by a skeptical, practical 
friend: What is the use of all this experimentation which leads to nothing 
practical? Franklin’s rejoinder was: ‘What is the use of a baby?” Which 
is the greater, to write a great drama or to stage it? The answer to this question 
presents to my mind the relative value of pure and technical achievement in 
the realm of progressive civilization. 
And what is the spirit of the pure scientist? It can be no more fittingly 
presented than in the words of the immortal Faraday: “I have rather, 
however, been desirous of discovering new facts and new relations dependent 
on magneto-electric induction than of exalting the force of those already ob- 
