CHAPTER VIII

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND INVENTION

A PRIME reason for expecting future earnings to
be greater was that we in America were applying
science and invention to industry as we had never
applied them before.
[nventing is now a profession. Invention is today
recognized as having a high cash value and is eagerly
sought after by progressive corporations. The contrast
 with the past, even with a few years ago, is
very great, and the contrast is enormous with a generation
 or a century ago.
We still talk about the wonderful innovations—
power looms, steam engines and locomotives and the
various elements in the English “industrial revolution”
 of the eighteenth century—which had such
a profound effect on business and banking. But let
us see who invented these inventions.
James Watt, inventor of the steam engine, was
not a professional inventor. He was a maker of
mathematical instruments. Richard Arkwright, who
invented the spinning Jenny, was a barber. Edmund
Cartwright, who invented the power loom, was a
clergyman. Robert Fulton, who invented the steamboat,
 was a portrait painter. Invention was not then
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