WHO WILL PROMOTE SCIENCE?

By C. G. ABBOT.

President Harding, in transmitting the annual Federal budget to Congress, on December 4, 1922, proposed a budget of approximately three billion dollars for the fiscal year.ending June 30, 1924. Of this sum, he pointed out that two-thirds were necessary on account of practically fixed charges, such as the public debt, national defense, pensions, World War allowances, Federal aid, and there was left about one billion dollars in charges subject to administrative control. Analyzing these latter charges, he at length came to the item $10,619,456 for science and research and a little after took up the question of further cuts in Government appropriations, saying:

Can there be a reasonable expectation for further considerable reduction in governmental expenditures in the near future? This question is no doubt upon the lips of many. The burden of taxation caused by the World War has borne heavily upon us all, and it has been the earnest desire of the Government to reduce this burden to the minimum consistent with a proper functioning of the Federal services. We have seen, however, that approximately two-thirds of the taxes collected go to pay certain fixed charges, over the expenditure of which there can be exercised little or no administrative control

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After deducting these items there is left, as has been shown, approximately only one billion dollars, out of which these normal operating expenses of the Government must be paid. It is against this group of expenditures that the retrenchment policy of the Government has been directed.

After discussing some of the items included in this category, he continues:

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There is a rapidly broadening field of Government expenditure which may be discussed with profit to us all. I refer to expenditures which are being made from appropriations for Federal aid in lines of research, improvement, and development, which, while having no direct connection with the operations of the business of Government, have grown to become a recognized part of its activities *. There is question as to how far the Government should participate in these extraneous activities, and I am frank to say that an answer to the question as to whether we can look forward to any further material reduction in the expenditures of the Government in future years depends largely upon whether or not there will be a curtailment or expansion of these activities, which have already added greatly to the annual drafts upon the Treasury of the United States.

From these authoritative figures we learn that the Federal Government is appropriating one-third of 1 per cent of its annual budget for science and research, and that in the pursuit of economy it may be possible that this and other public welfare items, regarded as extraneous to the true business of Government, may be subject to future reduction. This raises the question: Should science be supported at all; and if so, by whom?

People fall in several classes according to their outlook upon science. There are those who hold that because "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing" a great deal of knowledge is a calamity. Over against this is the little group of those who love knowledge for its own sake as the soul of civilization and a great prize worth sacrifice to gain. Between these extremes lies the great body of the public whose first question about a new discovery is "What good is it?"

If it were possible to change this attitude of the man in the street to that of faith in the future value of all truth, such as indeed past experience warrants, there would remain no reason to write this article. Government would then support research by more than one-third of 1 per cent of its budget, because the voters would demand it, and men of wealth would increasingly bequeath new foundations for scientific research or strengthen existing ones.

It is a pity that the man who loves and creates knowledge should be so remote from the man who creates wealth. The press of our country does little to bridge the chasm between the man of science and the public, not because the papers are not eager to print every new thing-far from it. But, unlike the press of many foreign countries, and notably of the British Australasian colonies, our writers place small value on accuracy and appear by comparison with Australian reporters to belittle the intelligence and good taste of their readers. Few news reporters of the United States are qualified themselves to write on science, but when interviewing a research man on the subject of his latest discovery they seldom use shorthand. They take a few notes in a longhand code, but their prime object is to pry for something sensational to associate with the story. When the piece appears the sensation is the kite, the discovery no more than a mutilated tail. The discoverer shudders and vows it shall be the last interview he will grant. His fellow investigators, seeing the news story, may make a shrewd guess as to what he has done, but the public, with little knowledge of the subject as a guide, is led ever deeper into the Alice in Wonderland world which our newspapers invent. There are some gallant exceptions in the American press. More power to them!

Doubtless the blame should alight partly upon the man of science. For if he will not or can not present his news in an interesting way

the reporters will do it for him, accuracy to the contrary notwithstanding, if they can scent out any whiff of human interest in it. In good conscience it behooves him to practice up in the art of presenting the heart of things. Even his fellow men of science would appreciate that when it comes to listening to him in a meeting.

There is a time-worn illustration which strikes harder now than when first uttered, because the faith of the man of science has been so overwhelmingly justified. A member of the Government to whom Michael Faraday was showing a new experiment in electricity said slightingly, "Very curious, but of what use is it?" "By and by, my lord," replied Faraday, "you may tax it."

Not everybody who makes valuable discoveries is a Faraday, yet the man in the street expects every discoverer to be also a prophet, and not only a prophet, but endowed with a gift of tongues, so that when asked "of what use is the new result?" he shall go beyond the answer of him who replied: "Of what use, madame, is a new-born infant?" and be able to describe the whole family tree of the descendants of the infant discovery in terms so simple and so clear that he who runs may read.

If investigation had always been limited to subjects promising to have utility, we should still be in the dark ages. The enlightenment of the human mind brought about by the study of astronomy, for instance, has a value not to be measured by dollars and cents, but by the safety of life and property from religious persecution and by the advance from superstition and ignorant fear of nature. On the other hand, it would be easy to cite many investigations of apparently merely curious and trivial phenomena which later on came to have high commercial utility. One will suffice. Thirty years ago no "practical man" would have dreamed of investigating the conduction of electricity through rarefied gases. Röntgen's discovery of X rays was not in the least influenced by utility, but came out of pure research work in that field. Think of X-ray hospital work nowadays! Moreover, every department store carries radio-telephone outfits, with their thermionic amplifiers, which also are the children of that same line of pure research.

But after all," what further need have we of witnesses?" Hertzian waves have become radio; Pasteur's bacilli have led up to the Mayo brothers' surgery and the abolishment of yellow fever; Faraday's and Henry's electromagnets have become dynamos and telegraphs, and the whole world is revolutionized in a century by the discoverers who worked not for utilities but for knowledge. Yet it is a mean, stunted mind that sees only things like autos and electric lights as the foremost rewards and justification of science. What the sculpture of Phidias, the painting of Raphael, the music of

Beethoven, the language of the Bible, are to the finer departments of the mind such also and quite as wholesome in their influence on private life and public conduct are those studies of the atoms, the universe, and the march of life, which form science.

An investment in science is as sure as a United States bond. All history, and especially the history of our own time, proves it. If a man of millions coming up to the time when he should put his house in order for his departure is so clannish as to wish to give all to his heirs, caring nothing for any other living beings in this world and not even regarding a monument to himself, he would accomplish his purpose more completely by investing 5 per cent of his fortune to promote scientific research. For his descendants will suffer cancers and will desire luxuries like other men. The only way that those pangs may be avoided and those desires gratified is by the making and utilization of scientific discoveries. If means are provided, such discoveries will be made and applied. The past proves it. No gift of prophecy is needed to know that the future progress of knowledge will benefit both rich and poor.

Science should be supported, but by whom, and to whom should the wealth flow to promote it? President Harding's message shows that for the present Federal support is scanty, and for the future uncertain. The State governments differ in their liberality, but on the whole, like the Nation, so the States. There are the universities and schools of higher learning whose scientific output is inspiring. But listen to the general cry from them! Enormous enrollment, pinching salaries, time and energy consumed in teaching. They can do little more without endowments specifically given them for research purposes. They can not devote more of their present means to scientific experiments, though they might employ additional sums highly creditably if such were intrusted to them. Then there are the great manufacturing corporations. All the more enlightened of them maintain now scientific laboratories, but primarily they are carried on for utilitarian ends closely associated with the problems of manufacture, and the results are apt to be withheld in part from public knowledge. One is not aware that a single one of these organizations promotes, for example, the progress of mathematics, although all of them make use of it as a tool, and without the progress of mathematics beyond its present attainments the more profound engineering problems of the future will lack means of solution.

In short, research with the universities, colleges, and corporations is a secondary by-product, associated in the former with teaching, in the latter with manufacturing. The professors may have the spirit inclined to seek knowledge wherever it leads, but they lack the opportunity. The corporation employees drive knowledge where

wealth is to be gained. These agencies are not enough. There needs to be the broad research organizations founded to survey the field of knowledge, direct researches so as to fill its gaps and extend its borders without prejudice in favor of immediate wealth-producing utilities. They must also publish and diffuse accurate and inspiring knowledge among the people and find out and give opportunities for work to the exceptional men and women-the Faradays and the Curies of the future.

There are already several such establishments well organized, ably directed, and enjoying the advice and counsel of the most wellinformed and far-sighted of our men of science and philanthropy. Men of wealth have founded them as memorials in most cases, giving their own names, very naturally, to secure perpetual remembrance. The time will come when it would be foolish and hurtful to add to the number of such institutions, but not soon when it will cease to be needful to add to their financial resources.

There should be no hesitation on account of a name. Some of these institutions, notably the oldest, the Smithsonian, have carried their names so long that they are now no longer primarily associated with the founders, but rather with the noble work which the institutions have done, so that they have become household and national rather than family names. A modern giver to such an old institution may, however, well require that his own name should be attached to that part of the foundation which he donates, and thus he may provide himself with a worthy memorial.

But let him think seriously in doing so before tying up his gift with restrictions as to the character of the expenditures to be promoted thereby. The giver is but one man, and however wide his knowledge that of the institution is wider, more comprehensive, and discerning. Times change; research is alive and growing. Let there be trust in the wisest use of the funds by the enlightened executive of the institution rather than a restriction of scope. Otherwise the institution is apt to be loaded with a series of white elephants and oppressed to stagnation by the management of them, whereas if the gifts were free from oppressive conditions the right things could be done to promote useful knowledge.

Colleges have loyal alumni, some of great wealth competent to endow large foundations bearing their names. But the alumni as a body, without hope of individual perpetual remembrance give great sums to rescue the college in its times of need. Research institutions lack these loyal constituencies. How can they, then, with dignity lay bare their poverty or hope for adequate relief? Can their officers, so imbued with veneration and loyalty that they serve a lifetime for a pittance, eked out by literary or teaching work in recreation hours,