Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 59.djvu/198

188 greatest efforts of the greatest intellects, that have kept their mental eye bright and flesh hard by constant exercise. Apparatus can be bought with money, talents may come to us at birth; but our mental tools, our mathematics, our experimental ability, our knowledge of what others have done before us, all have to be obtained by work. The time is almost past, even in our own country, when third-rate men can find a place as teachers, because they are unfit for everything else. We wish to see brains and learning, combined with energy and immense working-power, in the professor's chair; but, above all, we wish to see that high and chivalrous spirit which causes one to pursue his idea in spite of all difficulties, to work at the problems of nature with the approval of his own conscience, and not of men before him. Let him fit himself for the struggle with all the weapons which mathematics and the experience of those gone before him can furnish, and let him enter the arena with the fixed and stern purpose to conquer. Let him not be contented to stand back with the crowd of mediocrity, but let him press forward for a front place in the strife.

The whole universe is before us to study. The greatest labor of the greatest minds has given us only a few pearls; and yet the limitless ocean, with its hidden depths filled with diamonds and precious stones, is before us. The problem of the universe is yet unsolved, and the mystery involved in one single atom yet eludes us. The field of research only opens wider and wider as we advance, and our minds are lost in wonder and astonishment at the grandeur and beauty unfolded before us. Shall we help in this grand work, or not? Shall our country do its share, or shall it still live in the almshouse of the world?