chance. The world is the opportunity of the man who can seize it. All the true naturalist demands is to be born into it.
In like fashion, splendid resources count for nothing till they fall into the right hands. The existence of a microscope or microtome is no guarantee that some one will use it. The presence of a collection is no sign that some one will study it. It requires courage and zeal to lay hold of anything, and these qualities do not always dwell in kings' houses. Generous facilities can not take the place of men, and the best working rooms in the world will not raise mediocrity into genius. Haeckel once said bitterly that the output of laboratories in biology was always in inverse ratio to the completeness of their appointments.
For there are always influences at work, extrinsic and intrinsic forces, as I said just now, which oppose the spirit of investigation. Among these I class all which tend to make investigation perfunctory and all those which crown achievement with worldly reward. I have known men in European museums to say deliberately: It is time to put out another paper. What is the easiest thing I can do? Meanwhile searching for the line of work which will yield the largest number of pages for the amount of energy put forth. Something of this sort results from the pressure of university publication committees. So many pages of original research demanded for each month in the calendar. Better not print at all than to make it a stated function. On the whole, I place the fellowship system as a discouragement to research. The real comrade in zealous learning is a man who can take care of himself. To get his own training where he can do it best, in his own way, at his own cost, is one of the best parts of his scientific training. The free lunch at the university tempts those who are hungry, the pedant, the place-seeker, the second-hand scholar—to the prejudice of the investigator. The kind of man who best passes examinations is not the original, the forceful, the creative scholar. He has something better than examinations to think about. It is not to the credit of the American university system that the number of doctors of philosophy—to borrow a suggestion from Dr. Jacques Loeb—each year corresponds almost exactly to the number of young men hired to study in the particular institution. So many fellowships, so many doctors of philosophy. Very few of these stall-fed scholars have the courage or the conscience to do independent work after the outside stimulus is withdrawn.
Within the walls of the academy the place of the investigator is not sure. Temptations assail him here from within and from without. One of the meanest is the impulse to acquire a reputation cheaply, to conduct his researches under the lime light, making great discoveries while the printer waits. Yet our newspapers are full of grave discussions of* the outgivings of these lackeys of science. Almost equally cheap is the temptation to publication for publication's sake, to have
