120 The Stock Market Crash—dAnd After 
a vocation and was seldom appreciated until the 
inventor was dead and not even then unless the inven. 
tion was important. 
Even within the memory of men now living the 
business world looked askance upon inventors and 
upon scientific work in general, which was largely 
confined to the universities. The self-made business 
man would sometimes say that he would have noth- 
ing to do with a college-bred man in his establish- 
ment. On the other hand, the university man of 
the academic type, was equally contemptuous of 
the man who was merely making money. It is said 
of Professor Louis Agassiz that when he was asked 
why he did not use his brains to build up a fortune, 
he replied that he was too busy to make money. 
J. Willard Gibbs, the greatest scientist America ever 
produced, the Isaac Newton or Einstein of America, 
lived out his days obscure and unappreciated except 
among a small group of specialists. It is now said 
of Gibbs that unlike any other scientist, none of his 
work has ever been undone. It is also said that in 
the metallurgical industry alone, billions of dollars 
have been made, thanks to J. Willard Gibbs. But 
it probably never crossed his mind that he was laying 
the foundations for others to make money. His 
studies were made from the hope of pure science 
alone. 
But after 1919, something happened. The impli- 
cations of it are not yet sufficiently gauged. It was 
of enough significance to cause President Hoover's 
Committee on Recent Economic Changes to remark