Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/558

542 enterprise comes properly first, for, without that, without the influence of guiding spirits, the other agencies must fail. In a restricted sense, however, except perhaps as regards the beginnings of science, individual enterprise is the weakest force of all. To the modern investigator leisure and opportunities are necessary; in chemistry and physics, at least, apparatus and laboratories are indispensable; and few men working alone can command either the needful time or the bare material resources. During this century nine tenths of the great discoveries have been made by men with institutions back of them, through the aid of which the work was rendered possible. Wealth, scholarship, ability, and the spirit of research too seldom go together; and happy is the man in whom all these conditions are fortunately united. Under our second heading, in the shelter of schools and universities, the science of to-day has chiefly been developed.

The truth of my last statement may be verified by a reference to the files of those standard scientific journals in which original researches are recorded, or by scrutinizing in detail the history of any great discovery. In either case, whether we consider this country or Europe, the university work will be found to predominate overwhelmingly, and for obvious reasons. Every true university is something more than a distributor of knowledge; it is a producer of knowledge also; and in Germany, where the university system is most fully developed, the two functions are equally recognized. A German student, aspiring to academic honors, must do original work, and the professors' chairs are always filled from among the men who have most distinguished themselves as investigators. A chemist who had done nothing for pure science could hardly be recognized in Germany; not one of the higher professional positions would be within his reach; erudition alone, unsustained by evidence of creative ability, would do little for his advancement. In consequence of this policy, Germany now leads the scientific world; and, in consequence of that leadership, a certain industrial supremacy is fast becoming hers. One example will serve to illustrate the tendency to which I refer. The aniline dyes were discovered by Perkin in England about thirty-five years ago, and in that country the manufacture began. To-day, through the researches of German universities, Germany is the center of the coal-tar industry, and Engalnd has only a subordinate rank. Until recently the English universities have slighted experimental science, and English manufactures are paying for the neglect. One German firm alone, producers of coal-tar colors, employs over fourteen hundred workmen; but with them there are about fifty scientific chemists, every one a man trained in pure research, the product of the university system. These men are engaged to make investigations; to improve