The telephone, the electric transmission of power,
wireless telegraphy and the submarine cable are instances of immense
financial returns derived from the most abstruse principles of physics.
Yet there are scarcely any physical laboratories devoted to research, or
endowed with independent funds for this object, except those supported
by the government. The endowment of astronomical observatories devoted
to research, and not including that given for teaching, is estimated to
amount to half a million dollars annually. Several of the larger
observatories have an annual income of fifty thousand dollars.
[1] Commencement address at Case School of Applied Science, Cleveland,
May 27, 1909.
I once asked the wisest man I know, what was the reason for this
difference. He said that it was probably because astronomy appealed to
the imagination. A practical man, who has spent all his life in his
counting room or mill, is sometimes deeply impressed with the vast
distances and grandeur of the problems of astronomy, and the very
remoteness and difficulty of studying the stars attract him.
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