Beginnings in Other Lands                     5

says it so long, so loudly and so clearly that he compels men to listen
to him-it is to him that the credit belongs."
  All the broad fields of microbiology had been plowed and planted
and had yielded a considerable harvest before we in America, save in
rare instances, had become aware of the importance of the microbial
world in us and around us. The importance of the first course in bac-
teriology given in this country seems slight. The first course did not
produce the seed from which the second and subsequent courses were
derived, as in the primary case of typhoid fever upriver for those ac-
quiring the disease from drinking the bacteria-laden water downstream.
The courses and much of our knowledge and inspiration sprouted from
seed grown in Europe, and although the seed was not wind borne, it
was widely disseminated and came to fruition in many areas at about
the same time.
   With our characteristic American genius, we have in microbiology
 as in other fields, emphasized practical applications. In stressing this
 fact, one is certainly not minimizing their importance. Pasteur has well
 said, "There is science and the applications of science, bound together
 as the fruit to the tree that bears it."3 Until recently scientists
have
 agreed with Pasteur that no sharp dividing line exists between pure and
 applied investigations. Important fundamental concepts and advances
 have come in working out applications as well as in research carried on
 from pure curiosity.
   Thomas Henry Huxley, in one of his essays on education, states
 that "the great end of life is not knowledge but action." He says
 further,
 I often wish that this phrase, "applied science," had never been
invented. For it suggests
 that there is a sort of scientific knowledge of direct practical use, which
can be studied
 apart from another sort of scientific knowledge, which is of no practical
utility, and
 which is termed "pure science." But there is no more complete
fallacy than this. What
 people call applied science is nothing but the application of pure science
to particular
 classes of problems. It consists of deductions from those general principles,
established
 by reasoning and observation, which constitute pure science. No one can
safely make
 these deductions until he has a firm grasp of the principles.4

 Is not freedom of initiative, even if not always wise, the chief point
 rather than this overemphasis on pure versus applied science? Have
 not the appalling expenditures for defense, the direction of effort by
 uninformed political bodies, the wastefulness of our clashing govern-
 mental agencies, and the draining of our colleges and universities of