II.] EXTRAORDINARY ENDOWMENTS. 47 bination of chemicals, if a practical gunfounder or shipbuilder attempts some grand and novel scheme of artillery or naval architecture, and, after making careful calculations, fails, his failure is a result for which he has a right to be paid ; it is an addition to our knowledge to have learned that such and such combinations do not produce the effect which it was calculated that they would produce. So in historical study I should place among the lawful researches and results, the investigation of foreign libraries, the exploration of unsearched districts for the purpose of collecting -inscriptions, the calendaring and cataloguing of manuscripts,—all sorts, in fact, of investigations on which it was, a priori, reasonably probable that discoveries would be made; provided such investigations were carried out systematically, provided the work were well done, even if, in that sense of result, there were no result but the discovery that there was nothing to discover. I do not mean to say that the successful researcher should be placed on a level with the unsuccessful, although his success would probably be in itself remunerative, and the element of good fortune should not be left out of account. Well, I should like to see us send an occasional envoy to the Vatican Library, or to the great libraries of the Roman princes ; or to send a trained scholar, chosen not by competition, but because his peculiar qualifications forced him upon our notice, to watch the explorations at Olympia or at Troy. More generally, however, I think that the endowment of research should take the form of payment for actual results. Find your man of research, and set him to the work of research ; pay him something by way of retaining fee, which you may safely do when you have caught him, but let the liberal remuneration for work actually produced be the real endowment, be it books written, books edited, coins or manuscripts collected, as the case may be. The further