Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 75.djvu/606

600 the facilities of wireless and of other methods of communication, or any of the thousands of things that steam and electricity can supply, every one traces back beyond the artisan and the financier to the oft forgotten investigator but for whose labors there would be occasion for neither, and even kings could not have as a luxury that which all the world now deems a necessity.

It is absolutely essential to our future progress, nor can this be emphasized too strongly, that we appreciate the inestimable value of pure research; that we realize the futility without it of every effort to advance, and the certainty with it of the creation of new industries, the finding of new comforts and the improvement of man's every condition: and it is equally essential that on realizing this we have the courage to act according to our convictions.

Let us then humbly and honestly inquire what part we Americans as individuals, as communities and as a nation are taking in this the chief labor of the human race for its existence and for its betterment. The average individual, if he is honest with himself, is not likely to feel very proud of his own achievements or of those of his community, nor even satisfied with the earnestness of his efforts; and therefore as a nation we are not able to point with pride to the part we have taken in scientific investigations. Good work has been done and is being done in an increasingly large amount, but on the whole, as a nation, we are not doing our duty in this respect, for our productiveness, relative to our numbers, falls far short of that of most of our mother countries, such as England, Prance, Germany and Holland, and besides many of the more important discoveries that we claim were made by men of foreign birth.

It is not very agreeable to have to admit this state of affairs, but only the ignorant fail to see their own faults, and only the coward refuses to admit them. The wise thing to do is to admit them frankly—at least to one's self—and the courageous thing is to begin promptly and persistently to do one's full duty as he sees it.

It would be well if possible to learn the cause of this generally admitted rarity of American discoveries, so that as in the case of a disease a remedy can be intelligently sought for. It can not be attributed to race difference, since we are of the same stock that produces so much more on the other side of the ocean. Nor can it be attributed to lack of means, for we boast of the greatest wealth of any nation of this or of any past age, and to our universities we make gifts whose princely magnificence astounds the world. Neither is it due to our mad rush in business, our striving after wealth, for in general our greatest business centers, our wealthiest cities, are the principal sources of our original contributions to knowledge; while that very part of our country which has always boasted its superiority to the sordid things of mammon, to the littleness of business strife, and prided itself upon its intelligence,