THE RESULTS OF THE CONGRESS 131 



Its less visible side-effects seem in no way less important for scholar- 

 ship, and they are fourfold. There was, first, the personal contact 

 between the scholarly public and the leaders of thought; there was, 

 secondly, the first academic alliance between the United States and 

 Europe; there was, thirdly, the first demonstration of a world con- 

 gress crystallized about one problem; there was, fourthly, the unique 

 accentuation of the thought of unity in all human science; and each 

 of these four movements will be continued and reinforced by the pub- 

 lication of these proceedings. 



The first of these four features, the contact of the scholarly public 

 with the best thinkers of our time, had, to be sure, its limitations. It 

 was not sought to create a really popular congress. Neither the level 

 of the addresses, nor the size of the halls, nor the number of invita- 

 tions sent out, nor the general conditions of a world's fair at which 

 the expense of living is high and the distractions thousandfold, 

 favored the attendance of crowds. It was planned from the first that 

 on the whole scholars and specialists should attend and that the army 

 should be made up essentially of officers. If in an astronomical section 

 perhaps thirty men were present, among whom practically every one 

 was among the best known directors of observatories or professors of 

 mathematics, astronomy, or physics, from all countries of the globe, 

 much more was gained than if three thousand had been in the audi- 

 ence, brought together by an interest of curiosity in moon and stars. 

 For the most part there must have been between a hundred and two 

 hundred in each of the 128 sectional meetings, and that was more 

 than the organizers expected. This direct influence on the inter- 

 ested public is now to be expanded a thousandfold by the mission 

 work of these volumes. The concentration of these hundreds of 

 addresses into a few days made it in any case impossible to listen to 

 more than to a small fraction; these volumes will bring at last all 

 speakers to coordinated effectiveness; and while one hall suffered 

 from bad acoustics, another from bad ventilation, and a third from 

 the passing of the intermural trains, here at least is an audience in 

 which nothing will disturb the sensitive nerves of the willing follower. 



But much more emphasis is due to the second feature. The Con- 

 gress was an epoch-making event for the international world of 

 scholarship from the fact that it was the first great undertaking in 

 which the Old and the New Worlds stood on equal levels and in which 

 Europe really became acquainted with the scientific life of these 

 United States. The contact of scholarship between America and Eu- 

 rope has, indeed, grown in importance through many decades. Many 

 American students had studied in European and especially in German 

 universities and had come back to fill the professorial chairs of the 

 leading academic institutions. The spirit of the Graduate School and 

 the work towards the Doctor's degree, yes, the whole productive 



