The phrase "part of the public good" (lines 13- 14)in effect means -----.

In modern times, it was perhaps the "gentleman
scientists" of the nineteenth century who came closest to
a genuinely objective form of scientific research. These
privileged amateurs enjoyed a financial independence
which most scientists today cannot have, and which
enabled them to satisfy their scientific curiosity without
the need to please patrons. With the growth of scientific
research after World War II, science has become an
expensive occupation. Many scientists today look back
upon the 1960s as a golden age of modern-day science,
when research was mainly funded by the taxpayer, and
scientific enquiry was seen by governments to be part of
the public good, and worth paying for. Today, the
situation is very different. "Academic freedom" is now
often little more than an illusion for most scientists
working at universities or in publicly-funded research
institutes. Moreover, science is now largely dominated
by the interests of the industrial world, and hence, hardly
deserves the name "science".