52 
TRANSACTIONS OF THE TEXAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
and lie replied by saying, “What is the nse of a baby?” Similar pos- 
sibilities are in each. It might have been that some fretful nurse once 
asked the latter question in regard to Dewey, Hobson, Joe Wheeler, or 
Fitzhugh Lee. The answer to-day would be swift and sure, but no surer 
than the scientist or any man of intelligence would reply if you were to 
ask him of what use were the abstract discoveries of that greatest phys- 
icist of modern times, Michael Farady, for he would reply that the , very 
light you read by, the very car you ride on, and every application of in- 
duced or direct currents can find a near ancestor in some of his abstract 
discoveries. I know that it is often asserted that many of our best inven- 
tions come from laymen. This is undoubtedly true. The true scientist 
is not influenced by the money consideration. Agassiz said to the agent 
of the lecture bureau when he received a flattering offer to lecture to the 
public, “What care I for your money?” The layman has brought many 
inventions to the front. But to whom is most credit due? To the man 
who points out the wonderful richness of an unknown country, or the 
man that acts upon the suggestion and reaps a golden harvest? Almost 
all patents, you will find, were preceded by some pathfinder who cared 
not for money. 
I can not urge the care of science upon the State in more fitting lan- 
guage than that used by the prince consort at the Aberdeen meeting 
of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. In his 
address as president of the association, he said: “We may be justified 
in hoping that the legislature and the State will more and more recognize 
the claims of science to their attention; so that it may no longer require 
the begging-box, but speak to the State like a favored child to its parent, 
sure of its paternal solicitude for its welfare; that the State will recog- 
nize in science one of its elements of strength and prosperity, to foster 
which the clearest dictates of self-interest demand.” Science should 
command the respect of the State as a necessary adjunct of power if not 
as a “favored child.” But there are many reforms necessary before sci- 
ence can be considered a “favored child” in some of our States. As long 
as the practice of medicine is at the mercy of the quack or the second- 
class medical college, as long as the men who have been thoroughly 
trained in the best modern schools, and who are familiar with the best 
practice of the day, are not allowed to control the practice of medicine, 
there is work to be done by the State. There is work to be done as long 
as the profession of law has no protection against the shyster. There 
is again work to be done as long as the profession of engineering is with- 
out any legal status whatever. The professions of law and medicine do 
have a form of requirement before practice can be attempted, but the 
profession of the engineer has no safeguard whatever. The man who has 
been graduated at Cornell, Troy, or the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
