SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
of Australia to appreciate science, which has been a recluse, so that they 
desire it as a friend. This can best be done by letting the people know 
that science is both practical and profitable. 
Tn the past there has been aloofness on the part both of the scientist 
and the public, and for this neither side has been guiltless. Often the 
research investigator, engrossed in his work, has inherited the aloofness 
of a professional guild, and often, even if not influenced by that feeling, 
he has had reason enough to remain aloof from the public. For, if his 
discoveries were of immediate practical value, he was ready to leave it 
to others to advertise them in due time. If they merely opened wider 
ihe gates of knowledge, the public was little interested, and the time for 
its enlightenment would come later, when the results of the research 
published in a scientific memoir or journal were boiled down to a sen: 
tence or a footnote in elementary text-books. From the researcher’s 
point of view, it seemed useless to endeavour to give the public the 
information it ought to have, and worse than useless to give it what it 
appeared to want. 
The public, on its side, has largely failed to appreciate the scientist. 
Individually, it often regards him as an impractical dreamer, lacking 
in those qualities which go to make the successful business man—an 
impressive personality, a decisive manner, and executive ability. Then 
there is the illusion about “ book-learning.’ Since most of the know- 
ledge with which the public is familiar is derived from books, it is 
assumed that higher learning is also derived from the study of books, 
and that a “professor” is a dry-as-dust person who has stuffed his 
brain with many books. The layman has failed to realize that to-day 
science is the most practical thing in the world, and that it constitutes, 
perhaps, the most effective agency for the comprehensive and systematic 
development of a country’s resources. Our Agricultural Departments 
have to -some extent succeeded in breaking down the barrier between the 
scientist and the layman. This has been possible largely because the 
farmer now realizes that the agricultural scientist is a practical and not 
merely a book-learned man, and that he finds out things by experiment 
in the same way as other people do, only more systematically and more 
exactly. It is true that the war has brought to the average man a general, 
but vague, realization of the tremendous importance of science and its 
application in actual life. Yet the same average man is not provided 
with literature which is readily accessible and easily understood, and 
from which he can get a scientifie view of things. 
Now, the Australian citizen is an intelligent and thoughtful person, 
and it can hardly be doubted that if the facts were placed before him 
in a way he could easily comprehend, he would be interested to learn 
how closely science affects him in practically all the commodities and 
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