read," a wit
has observed, "print it in an official document." Government reports are
filled with valuable information that remains quite unknown to the
average reader unless newspapers and magazines unearth it and present it
in popular form. The popularization of the contents of all kinds of
scientific and technical publications affords great opportunities for
the writer who can present such subjects effectively.

In addressing students of journalism on "Science and Journalism," Dr.
Edwin E. Slosson, literary editor of the _Independent_, who was formerly
a professor of chemistry, has said:

The most radical ideas of our day are not apt to be found in the
popular newspaper or in queer little insurrectionary, heretical and
propaganda sheets that we occasionally see, but in the technical
journals and proceedings of learned societies. The real revolutions
are hatched in the laboratory and study. The papers read before the
annual meetings of the scientific societies, and for the most part
unnoticed by the press, contain more dynamite than was ever
discovered in any anarchist's shop. Political revolutions merely
change the form of government or the name of the party in power.
Scientific revolutions really turn the world over, and it never
settles back into its former position.

* * * * *

The beauty and meaning of scientific discoveries can be revealed to
the general reader if there is an intermediary who can understand
equally the language of the laboratory and of the street. The modern
journalist knows that anything can be made interesting to anybody,
if he takes pains enough with the writing of it. It is not
necessary, either, to pervert scientific truths in the process of
translation into the vernacular. The facts are sensational enough
without any picturesque exaggeration.

* * * * *

The field is not an unprofitable one even in the mercenary sense. To
higher motives the task of popularizing science makes a still
stronger appeal. Ignorance is the source of most of our ills.
Ignorant we must always be of much that we need to know, but there
is no excuse for remaining ignorant of what somebody on earth knows
or has known. Rich treasure lies hidden in what President Gilman
called "the bibliothecal cairn" of scientific monographs which piles
up abou