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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



and humiliating showing. What is yet 

 worse, we cannot claim to be improv- 

 ing our relative position, but are rather 

 falling back, scientific activity increas- 

 ing more rapidly in Europe than here." 



The question now arises as to the 

 cause of this state of things. " Why, 

 with our numerous educational institu- 

 tions and our great crowd of professors, 

 should our contributions to the exact 

 sciences be so nearly zero ? " And to 

 this question he answers : " The real 

 proximate cause is found in the lack 

 of any sufficient incentive to the ac- 

 tivity which characterizes the scien- 

 tific men of other nations, and of any 

 sufficient inducement to make young 

 men of the highest talents engage in 

 scientific pursuits. The reason that so 

 much more scientific investigation is 

 done in Germany than in this country 

 is, simply, that the inducements to do it 

 are there so much more powerful." 



Prof. Newcomb points out that, " in 

 Germany, the seats of scientific activity 

 are the universities ; in France and Eng- 

 land, the learned societies ; " and that, 

 while in Germany it is the professors 

 who make the universities, in this coun- 

 try it is the universities that make the 

 professors. " Students flock to Berlin, 

 not because the university is an old, 

 celebrated, and good one, but to hear 

 Helmholtz and Virchow. If all the 

 men like these should leave the univer- 

 sity, the students would follow them. 

 But, in this country, students are not 

 attracted to Harvard and Yale by the 

 names of individual professors, but by 

 the reputation and organization of the 

 colleges." Professors may, perhaps, be 

 held in as high esteem here as in Ger- 

 many, but for different reasons. The 

 question in Germany is not, How much 

 does he know ? but, What has he added 

 to knowledge ? " What has he discov- 

 ered that is new ? what doubts has he 

 cleared up? what fallacies has he ex- 

 posed ? what increase of precision has 

 he given to the subject he has studied ? " 

 On the contrary, in our own so-called 



universities, " nothing more is expected 

 of a professor than acquaintance with 

 a certain defined curriculum and ability 

 to carry the student through it. He 

 has nothing to do but to satisfy the 

 appointing power that he understands 

 Avhat is found in a certain text-book, 

 and that he can teach what he knows 

 to others." He is not for a moment ex- 

 pected to be an original investigator; 

 while, for the kind of work not required 

 here at all, the German is held in the 

 highest estimation, and may secure large 

 pecuniary rewards, and a position in the 

 affections of a large body of educated 

 men. 



In England and France, on the con- 

 trary, it is not the universities but 

 scientific societies which furnish the 

 incentives to research. "It is a fact 

 which we have to face, and which it 

 would be folly to disguise, that our 

 scientific societies do not compare with 

 those of England in wealth and power. 

 . . . The great weakness of most of 

 our scientific organizations does not, 

 however, consist in the want of finan- 

 cial means, but in something much more 

 difficult to determine and define. We 

 can only say that, with a few excep- 

 tions, they exhibit a total lack of cohe- 

 sive power, vitality, and that undefin- 

 able something which may be called 

 weight and importance. However emi- 

 nent may be the men who compose 

 them, most of them are, as organiza- 

 tions, insignificant, and exhibit the same 

 liability to die from slight causes that 

 weak and sickly individuals do. A his- 

 tory of all the attempts to organize 

 learned societies in this country would 

 afford an instructive study in human 

 nature, and might show that they died 

 by causes as uniform as those which 

 cause the decay and death of individ- 

 uals. . . . 



" The important fact which we wish 

 to impress on the mind of the reader 

 Is, that, when an Englishman makes any 

 scientific investigation or discovery of 

 merit and importance, he is considered 



