THE PRO GE ESS OF SCIENCE 



5i7 



THE PEOGEESS OP SCIENCE 



THE NUMBER OF SCIENTIFIC 

 MEN IN THE WORLD 



The second edition of the interna- 

 tional "Who's Who in Science" 

 (edited by H. H. Stephenson, London, 

 1913) gives a classified index, from 

 which can be counted up the number of 

 scientific men in different countries and 

 in different sciences. The compilation 

 favors Great Britain in the first in- 

 stance and the United States in the 

 second, and is not very critical. It 

 gives, however, some idea of the rela- 

 tive numbers of scientific men in other 

 than English-speaking countries. The 

 United States is given first place in 

 the possession of scientific men of the 

 degree of distinction proposed for ad- 

 mission to the book, the figures for 

 leading nations being as follows: 

 United States, 1,678; Great Britain, 

 1,472; German Empire, 1,280; France, 

 423; Austria-Hungary, 348; Italy, 

 215; Switzerland, 214; Holland, 155; 

 Canada, 146; Sweden, 109; Eussia, 97; 

 Denmark, 93 ; Belgium, 90 ; Norway, 

 88. The German Empire has thus 

 about three times as many scientific 

 men as France, which nation is now 

 but little superior to Austria- Hungary, 

 or the three Scandinavian nations. 

 Italy and Switzerland have each about 

 one half as many scientific men as 

 France. Sweden, Eussia, Denmark, 

 Belgium and Norway have each about 

 a quarter as many. 



About one half of our scientific men 

 hold the doctorate of philosophy from 

 American universities and about three 

 fourths of those receiving this degree 

 continue to do scientific work. Accord- 

 ing to the compilation printed annu- 

 ally in Science, the average number of 

 degrees conferred in the natural and 

 exact sciences from 1898 to 1907 was 

 124; from 1908 to 1912 it increased to 

 212. As the number of scientific men 



j added each year is about 50 per cent, 

 above those who receive this degree, 

 the total number added to the ranks of 

 scientific men in this country during 

 the past fifteen years would be about 

 3,500. The number of degrees of doc- 

 tor of philosophy given in the sciences 



i by the 21 German universities to Ger- 

 mans in 1909-10 was 564, which prob- 

 ably about represents the increase in 

 the number of scientific men. It fol- 

 lows that at present we are producing 

 about half as many scientific men as 

 Germany; twenty years ago it was in 

 the neighborhood of one fourth as 

 many. 



If we make the assumption that 

 the numbers of scientific men entered 

 in the international "Who's Who in 

 Science" for the continental nations 

 should be increased fourfold to corre- 

 spond with the entries for the United 

 States and the United Kingdom and 

 that there are 6,000 scientific men in 

 the United States, the numbers for the 

 different nations would be approxi- 

 mately: Germany, 18,000; France, 6,- 

 000; United States, 6,000; Great 

 Britain, 5,000; Austria, 5,000; Italy, 

 3,000; Switzerland, 3,000; Holland, 

 2,000; Sweden, Eussia, Denmark, Bel- 

 gium and Norway, 1,500; Canada, 

 Spain, Portugal, 500; Bulgaria, Eou- 

 mania, 150; Servia, Greece, 25. For 

 the other continents the figures would 

 be roughly: Asia, 2,000; Central and 

 South America, 500; Australia, 500; 

 Africa, 300. The number of men now 

 living who have made contributions to 

 the advancement of science is conse- 

 quently in the neighborhood of 60,000, 

 of whom about one tenth live in the 

 United States. The number of scien- 

 tific men per million population in 

 1860 (the approximate average date 

 of their birth) would be for the sev- 

 eral countries: Switzerland, 1,200; 



