326 Science After the War
hope that it will take some part in the progress of pure
science. Research in pure science in America and elsewhere
is carried on almost exclusively in universities. Science owes
a great debt to modern universities for the way in which they
have encouraged scientific research. In America nearly all
the great universities are very liberally supported by the
public or by their State governments. While in England it
is generally extremely difficult to get any money for a uni-
versity, in America many universities get almost more than
they can spend. For example, Yale University has recently
been left about twenty million dollars. I should say that it
is about as hard to get ten thousand dollars for an English
university as it is to get a million dollars for an American
university. The great universities of Europe had a long
start, but they will be left behind in the race by American
universities unless the public in Europe begins to support
their universities as the public in America is doing. In
Texas the universities are very young, and unfortunately the
State university has not so far been supported by the Gov-
ernment with American liberality, but we understand that
Governor Hobby is going to right that immediately. The
Rice Institute as a university is a mere infant, but it has the
advantage of a considerable endowment. The endowment
of the Rice Institute is about enough for a small university
of, say, six hundred students, for the students at Rice pay
no fees and half the income is reserved for buildings. We
hope that the people of Texas will, in the future, support
their universities like the people of the older States. If
they do—and I believe they will—then the University of
Texas and the Rice Institute will develop into great universi-
ties and will take an honorable part in the progress of pure
and applied science. But the people of Texas, if they want
to have, right here in Texas, first-class schools and universi-