Incentives to the Scholar

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

President Lowell's excellent report on the condition's in graduate schools again brings to the fore a moot point: is it the purpose of the scholar or scientist (for I make small distinction between them) to be eminent in his field; or (eminence being for him a side issue and of no significance) does he rather seek after beauty and truth for the sake only of beauty and truth? If the former, then surely "the glory of a university is the enticement and production of scholars destined to be eminent in their fields." If the latter, will not the scholar avoid being sacrificed to the glory of a university as he would avoid death?

Anyone can with small effort indeed call to mind some of the greatest scholars and scientists, philosophers and poets, who, far from striving for eminence in their fields, seemed to prefer general notoriety. Some, like Gregor Mendel, were content without either notoriety or eminence.

The fact is that none of these men cared a whit for what President Lowell terms "eminence" or "distinction". They wrote poetry because they loved beauty; they discovered the laws of the universe because they loved truth. In most cases, the contemporaneous world has been unable to appreciate the motives of such men. Evidently the world changes but slowly. Can such men be "enticed" into a society whose atmosphere reeks of "striving for distinction"? Hardly, I think. F. C. Bell '33