Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu/493

Rh may come partly in the shape of fame, but something of a decidedly material nature is demanded also. A man may love science devotedly, and yet be starved into adopting some more lucrative profession.

Suppose, now, that a young man of culture, genius, and enthusiasm, wishes to devote his life to science. He has received the necessary training in his favorite branch, and simply asks for an opportunity to apply his attainments both to bodily support and to the extension of human knowledge. At the very start the chances are against him. Many such men are annually driven by necessity out of the field of science, and forced to seek a maintenance in trade, manufactures, or some other department of industry. That a great deal of valuable talent is thus wasted, and turned into channels unsuited to its development, there can be no doubt. That so much good work has been done in a society where so much is lost, speaks well for the human intellect, and shows that real ability is commoner than the majority of people suppose. If seed never fell by the wayside, but only in fruitful places, our views of human nature would soon undergo a wonderful change.

But in the case of our particular novice, employment is at last secured as "Professor of Natural Science" in an average American college. In fact, scarcely any other career would be open to him. Now, how many of the requisites for success are likely to be at his command?

To begin with, he encounters a board of trustees among whom not one has the remotest idea of what science is, or what is essential to its growth. He is called upon by these gentlemen to "teach" chemistry, physics, astronomy, botany, zoölogy, mineralogy, geology, physiology, and perhaps Paley's evidences on top of all. For study and research he has neither time, books, nor apparatus. For study, indeed, he is not supposed to need any time; and if he should press this necessity upon his employers, he would probably be told that he ought to know his lessons before attempting to teach. His students come to him miserably prepared, caring little for what he considers important, and regarding his instruction as so much of an impediment between them and their degrees. And for all this he may receive less than a thousand dollars a year, and that with a feeling of precariousness and uncertainty. At last one of three things happens: he is either called to a chair in some respectable institution, gives up teaching altogether for another less annoying occupation, or else, his enthusiasm quenched and his aspirations gone, settles down into a dreary rut, to rust out the remainder of his days.

This picture may seem exaggerated, and yet it is wholly within bounds. Many men have been ground through the mill of an unendowed country college professorship, and know how hard and thankless were the tasks assigned for them to do. In such a position the true man of science can very rarely find either appreciation,