Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/315

Rh it has to do with a very important general subject, which would intensely interest the intelligent. I presume that every investigation by an experienced investigator is suggested by its general bearing, the immediate material merely being that which is most available. It is this feature that the reporter always misses, and a strategic movement is represented to the public as a dress parade.

It may be well to intimate here that in all this discussion professional investigators are in mind, and not that host of still-born investigators whose first and last publication is a doctor's thesis.

Just how the clean-cut statements referred to may reach the public, and in what form, are matters of detail which purveyors to the public interest must work out. The general principle is that the investigator's own statement shall be available for such use.

This is the vital consideration, for all the trouble and the outraged feeling involved must be justified. It means a campaign of education in reference to investigation, an education of the intelligent public. Perhaps it remains to be proved whether this public can become educated in this matter, but the interests at stake seem to make it worth trying. I shall put aside as of secondary importance the more just estimate of investigators that would result, the pulling down of some conspicuous names to a proper level, and the better leveling up of scientific men in general. The present situation in this regard may be irritating and even disgusting, but it is not of sufficient importance to justify what has been proposed. In my judgment, the justification will be found in two results, which, taken together, must seem important to every investigator.

1. It will show that research is practical.—I recognize at once, in using this statement, that if the universities have stood for anything, they have stood for what is called 'pure science.' I would be the last one to recommend a departure from this standard, for my thought is to show that pure science is the real foundation for any effective applied science; and that the 'practical science' of popular definition is the rankest empiricism.

A recent and conspicuous illustration in my own field may be cited. When Moore was busying himself with the study of algae, he would have been characterized by the public as highly impractical, for not only were his studies apparently foreign to human interest, but that group of plants is peculiarly within the domain of 'pure science.' However, when he was transferred to the Department of Agriculture, and began to apply his training, the problem of polluted water-supplies, which had cost empiricism, called 'practical science,' many thousands of dollars in attempting to solve, met with almost immediate and