Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 59.djvu/185

Rh enriched thousands and benefited each one of us? There arc also those who have every facility for the pursuit of science, who have an ample salary and every appliance for work, yet who devote themselves to commercial work, to testifying in courts of law, and to any other work to increase their present large income. Such men would be respectable if they gave up the name of professor, and took that of consulting chemists or physicists. And such men are needed in the community. But for a man to occupy the professor's chair in a prominent college, and, by his energy and ability in the commercial applications of his science, stand before the local community in a prominent manner, and become the newspaper exponent of his science, is a disgrace both to him and his college. It is the death-blow to science in that region. Call him by his proper name, and he becomes at once a useful member of the community. Put in his place a man who shall by precept and example cultivate his science, and how different is the result! Young men, looking forward into the world for something to do, see before them this high and noble life, and they see that there is something more honorable than the accumulation of wealth. They are thus led to devote their lives to similar pursuits, and they honor the professor who has drawn them to something higher than they might otherwise have aspired to reach.

I do not wish to be misunderstood in this matter. It is no disgrace to make money by an invention, or otherwise, or to do commercial scientific work under some circumstances. But let pure science be the aim of those in the chairs of professors, and so prominently the aim that there can be no mistake. If our aim in life is wealth, let us honestly engage in commercial pursuits, and compete with others for its possession. But if we choose a life which we consider higher, let us live up to it, taking wealth or poverty as it may chance to come to us, but letting neither turn us aside from our pursuit.

The work of teaching may absorb the energies of many; and, indeed, this is the excuse given by most for not doing any scientific work. But there is an old saying, that where there is a will there is a way. Few professors do as much teaching or lecturing as the German professors, who are also noted for their elaborate papers in the scientific Journals. I myself have been burdened down with work, and know what it is; and yet I here assert that all can find time for scientific research if they desire it. But here, again, that curse of our country, mediocrity, is upon us. Our colleges and universities seldom call for first-class men of reputation, and I have even heard the trustee of a well-known college assert that no professor should engage in research because of the time wasted! I was glad to see, soon after, by the call of a prominent scientist to that college, that the majority of the trustees did not agree with him.