is not to the small agitations of society
that I should be disposed to ascribe the defect, but to the fact that
the men among you who possess the endowments necessary for profound
scientific inquiry, are laden with duties of administration, or
tuition, so heavy as to be utterly incompatible with the continuous
and tranquil meditation which original investigation demands. It may
well be asked whether Henry would have been transformed into an
administrator, or whether Draper would have forsaken science to write
history, if the original investigator had been honoured as he ought to
be in this land. I hardly think they would. Still I do not imagine
this state of things likely to last. In America there is a willingness
on the part of individuals to devote their fortunes, in the matter of
education, to the service of the commonwealth, which is probably
without a parallel elsewhere; and this willingness requires but wise
direction to enable you effectually to wipe away the reproach of De
Tocqueville.

Your most difficult problem will be, not to build institutions, but to
discover men. You may erect laboratories and endow them; you may
furnish them with all the appliances needed for inquiry; in so doing
you are but creating opportunity for the exercise of powers which come
from sources entirely beyond your reach. You cannot create genius by
bidding for it. In biblical language, it is the gift of God; and the
most you could do, were your wealth, and your willingness to apply it,
a million-fold what they are, would be to make sure that this glorious
plant shall have the freedom, light, and warmth necessary for its
development. We see from time to time a noble tree dragged down by
parasitic runners. These the gardener can remove, though the vital
force of the tree itself may lie beyond him: and so, in many a case
you men of wealth can liberate genius from the hampering toils which
the struggle for existence often casts around it.

Drawn by your kindness, I have come here to give these lectures, and
now that my visit to America has become almost a thing of the past, I
look back upon it as a memory without a single stain. No lecturer was
ever rewarded as I have been. From this vantage-ground, however, let
me remind you that the work of the lecturer is not the highest work;
that in science, the lecturer is usually the distributor of
intellectual wealth amassed by better men. And though lecturing and
teaching, in moderation, will in