I should be loth to gainsay so keen an observer and so profound a political writer, but, since my arrival in this country, I have been unable to see anything in the constitution of society, to prevent a student, with the root of the matter in him, from bestowing the most steadfast devotion on pure science.  If great scientific results are not achieved in America, it 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 general promote their moral health, it is not solely or even chiefly, as lecturers, but as investigators, that your highest men ought to be employed.  You have scientific