Copyright © 2002 UC Regents

The Emerging Business of Science

Ever the entrepreneur, E. W. insisted that the marine station operate like a business and attempt to turn a profit. This proved impractical for a research facility. Frustrated by the lack of business sense among the academics, and refusing to take upon himself the burden of clerical details, E. W. withdrew from the board of trustees on two occasions. (At one point, when the yacht he'd loaned the institution was run aground during a research cruise, he very nearly ended his support altogether.)

Ellen Browning Scripps paid for construction of the Scripps research vessel Alexander Agassiz, named for the renowned Harvard oceanographer. Agassiz, who had been Ritter's teacher at Harvard, visited San Diego in 1905 and subsequently donated valuable books and scientific apparatus to the fledgling biological station immeasuringly boosting the morale of all involved. The 85-foot schooner was the first ship launched by the institution and one of the first vessels built specifically for marine research.

The sometimes cantankerous E. W. wrote to Ritter at "Bugville," his nickname for the institution: "I have been so schooled and trained in business that... I am more provoked by any sort of a business mistake, bookkeeping or otherwise, than I could possibly be exhilarated by the feeling that I had helped to discover ten thousand new kinds of bugs."

Still, according to Scripps biographer Oliver Knight, Ritter was the only person with whom E. W. ever developed a genuine and close personal friendship, and, in fact, E. W. never abandoned this friendship nor his interest in seeing the institution succeed.

Their rapport enabled the two friends to criticize each other with impunity and humor. Ritter responded to E. W.'s criticism of his business abilities by chastising him for not supporting the institution with generosity equal to Ellen's. E. W.'s comeback was that he helped Ellen make the money that she gave to the fledgling institution.

In 1909, E. W. stated his vision for Scripps: "The ideal institution that I had in view was not a school of instruction, but a school of research and compilation. I would have a school for the study of life—and perhaps life extends far and away beyond the borders of the field which the term biology is supposed to cover." He went on to boldly declare, "We are going to make this the biggest thing of its kind in the world."

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Among Ellen Browning Scripp's most important gifts to the campus was $36,000 for construction of the first Scripps pier. An invaluable research facility, and one of the area's most notable landmarks, it was built in 1915 of reinforced concrete pilings (shown being constructed above) and a plank deck. The first pier served the scientific community (and for many years the general public) until its replacement in 1988 with an all-concrete stucture, the Ellen Browning Scripps Memorial Pier.