Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/250

244 The occupation of a lifetime is not to be chosen by cold reason, but by the warmth of the heart. When friends go and the purse gets lean, a man may be kept warm by the enthusiasm for his work. When we always recur to our work with delight we make the most of our futures. Much of the success of an investigator lies in his choosing rightly, and the test of one's fitness is the durability of one's zeal.

Many and varied temptations there are to lead one astray from such a choice, the most seductive of which is escape from financial care. All of us can appreciate this, and the more perhaps because the multitude is apt to measure social standing by material wealth. But we will not linger over this time-worn and hoary subject of dispute, beyond noting that such thinkers as Dante and Harvey, who added so marvelously to our understanding of man, were neither rich nor yet in society. What immediately concerns us is that the investigator requires all of his ability to achieve results, and he certainly will have less success if he sacrifice his stronger inclinations for any social or mercenary reason. Let our financial futures take care of themselves, let us guard our talents. There is room at the top; it is only the bottom rungs that seem insecure.

Most men when they have obtained their doctor's degrees feel suddenly helpless, thrown out upon a chilling world. As a result most feel they should secure at once some sort of a remunerative position, and they are apt to think the position better the more it pays. This seems to me to be on the whole a pitiable error, and the reason why is very simple. For if young men have decided upon scientific research they surely will require time for their researches. It is rarely the case that they can occupy any school position and still have opportunity for their own work. Therefore the positions that are best for them are ones that make the least demands upon their time, and most of these are found only in universities. Suppose then a man should be given the choice of an instructorship at $1,500, in a high school or small college in which he would have no time for investigation, and of a graduate fellowship of $500, in which he would have every minute for his work, he should choose the latter no matter what worldly sacrifices he must make. For by this choice he would be gaining time, he would have opportunity to make a name for himself, and if he did not lose heart but remained true to himself he would certainly arrive at the proper kind of a position. If a man become side-tracked into a school teacher's chair, for the poor reason that he gets a living salary quicker, he will never be heard of and never get out of it to realize his ideals. The dollar may seem big, but time is more productive capital than money.

Yet, at the same time, it should be noted that a certain amount of teaching is good for the investigator. For in the first place a body of students enables him to farm out parts of his problem, and by establishing in this way a special school he is able to accomplish much more