Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 75.djvu/612

606 science. No man need believe there is nothing for him to do, nor no one to appreciate and help him—provided only that he will make it evident by his works that he deserves encouragement and would profitably use any material assistance.

For some lines of investigation, as every one knows, an expensive equipment is needed, but, as just explained, there are other things one may do, and besides that state is poor indeed that can not afford support to its university. Note what Germany did for her universities at the close of the Napoleonic wars, and what in turn the universities have done for her. Consider too the attitude of Japan when fighting the greatest battles of all history. Even the emperor's palace was without heat the whole winter long, but the Imperial University and every school of the empire was fully supported. It was when Port Arthur was still resisting stubbornly and all the issues of the war were unsettled that the eminent Kitazato, in company with many American scientists, first saw exhibited a certain new and important piece of research apparatus. The Americans expressed an admiration of and a desire for the apparatus, but each said that his department could not afford it. Kitazato, however, saw its value and recognized that an institution active in his specialty could not afford to do without it, and therefore ordered it at once and insisted upon the earliest possible delivery.

This is the spirit that within thirty years has made the University of Tokio one of the world's greatest centers of learning and of productive scholarship, and this is the spirit the absence of which has permitted that drowsy, contented introspection that is bringing Nirvana to many an American institution; and especially to those of the south.

 O wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursel's as others see us!

The critic is frequently assured that his is an easy task, and told that if he wishes things different he must at least state clearly what he does want, and show how to get it. Now it is not desired that this article shall be taken as a criticism chiefly, but rather as an appeal for a larger quantity of high-class creative work, especially at our universities of every section. Nevertheless, a few suggestions, which the author knows to be practicable will be made.

But before suggesting what, in the author's opinion, are some of the things best to do to render our scholarship more profound and more productive it may be worth while, though it is humiliating to admit it, emphatically to call attention to a few things not to do. Don't merit contempt by cheaply exploiting the scholar's noblest work. Don't set unprepared young men to doing worthless pieces of drudgery—counting the hairs on the end of a white kitten's tail it may be—and then, after cheating them of their time, try to humbug them into believing that they have been profitably engaged upon important investigations. Don't