Science After the War 329
class schools and universities and the schools and universities
of Texas.
Ladies and gentlemen, comparisons are odious, and I do
not propose to make any. I hope that if you make for your-
selves any such comparisons you will find that some, at
any rate, of the schools and universities of Texas compare
well with those in the other States.
I feel sure that if the people of Texas would take a lively
interest in their schools and find out for themselves how they
compare with the best elsewhere, it would be a great
help to Texas educators. There is nothing like public in-
terest in a question to produce progress, and educational
progress is necessary for progress in anything else.
The opportunities for education in Texas and Houston
have greatly improved in recent years, important progress
has been made, and the outlook for the future is good.
There is perhaps a tendency to attach too much importance
to buildings and too little to the teachers. What is most
required is better pay for school-teachers and employment
for them during the whole year. You must attract good
men into the teaching profession if you want to improve
education. I suggest that a good school-teacher ought to be
as well paid as a good carpenter or a good plumber. At any
rate, that might be taken as an ideal to be attained some
day when the country has become rich enough. If the laws of
the State limit the money available for schools and universi-
ties, then the laws must be changed.
The progress of pure science centers round great dis-
coveries—for example, the discovery of radioactivity. Such
epoch-making discoveries are, comparatively speaking, rare.
Each such discovery leads to an immense amount of research
work by which its meaning is made out, and in the course
of which many new minor discoveries are made. We cannot