A titter rippled through the audience. Baker saw Wily poised, beet-red, to spring up once more; then apparently he thought better of it and slumped in his seat.
"Is this a fair test?" Baker asked rhetorically. "I submit that it is. An institution that is in the business of fostering creativeness ought to be guilty of a few new ideas once in a while!"
He changed charts once more and faced the listeners. "We have more than twenty such factors that go into the composition of the Index. I will not weary you with a recital of all of them, but I will present just one more. We call this the area of communication, and it is plotted here for Sample institution A."
Again, a dismal red smudge showed up at the bottom of the sheet. Fenwick could hardly keep from chuckling aloud as he recalled the first time he had seen such a chart. He hoped Baker was putting it over. If the reaction of the gallery were any indication, he was doing so.
"A major activity of scientists in all ages has been writing reports of their activities. If a man creates something new and talks only to himself about it, the value of the man and his discovery to the world is a big round zero. If a man creates something new and tells the whole world about it, the value is at a maximum. Somewhere in between these extremes lies the communicative activity of the modern scientist.
"There was a time when the scientist was the most literate of men, and the writing of a scientific report was a work of literary art. The lectures of Michael Faraday, Darwin's account of his great research—these are literate reading still.
"There are few such men among us today. The modern scientists seldom speak to you and me, but only to each other. To the extent their circle of communication is limited, so is their value. Shall we support the man who speaks to the world, or the man who speaks only in order to hear his own echo?"
He had them now, Fenwick was convinced. He could quit any time and be ahead. The gallery was smiling approval. The press was nodding and whispering to each other. The senators wouldn't be human if they weren't moved.
Baker swept aside all these charts now and placed another series before the audience. "This is the Index on an institution to whom we have given a sizable grant," he said. "Is there anyone here who would question our decision?
"This institution would have accepted every one of the list of scientists I gave you a moment ago. They would have had their chance here. This institution has men in whom new ideas pop up like cherry blossoms in the spring. I don't know how many of them are good ideas. No one can tell at this stage, but, at least, these men are thinking—which is a basic requirement for producing scientific discovery.