THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



477 



nized outside the ranks of specialists. 

 It is but now that our opportunities 

 for education and researcli begin to 

 equal those of Germany, and twenty 

 years must be allowed before the har- 

 vest can be gathered, and a still longer 

 period before its quality and quantity 

 can be established. 



A careful estimate of America's posi- 

 tion in the scientific world must con- 

 sider the different kinds of scientific 

 work. In the applications of science 

 we probably lead. We have had and have 

 great inventors, and in the progress of 

 engineering, manufactures, agriculture, 

 etc., where the individual is often un- 

 recognized, we are contributing more 

 than our share. If further we divide the 

 pure sciences into nine groups — mathe- 

 matics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, 

 geology, zoology, physiology, botany and 

 anthropology-psychology — the United 

 States would be doing its share if it 

 excelled in one science. We are clearly 

 inferior to several nations in mathe- 

 matics, physics, chemistry and phys- 

 iology; we are inferior in reputation, 

 but not obviously so in performance, in 

 zoology, botany and anthropology- 

 psychology; we are probably doing 

 work of greater volume and value than 

 any other nation in astronomy and in 

 geology. 



DEMOCRACY AND THE RECOGNI- 

 TION OF SCIENCE. 

 Professor Newcomb's article in the 

 February number of the North Ameri- 

 can Review points out how much more 

 highly scientific men and scientific 

 academies are honored abroad than in 

 this country. In the European capitals 

 national leadership of every kind is 

 united in a homogeneous mass. The 

 men of science and of letters associate 

 with the political leaders. Scientific 

 eminence leads to social recognition and 

 political preferment, while those having 

 wealth and leisure engage in scientific 

 research. The national academies are 

 practically parts of the government. 

 In America great endowments are given 



to universities, but the personality of 

 the professor is ignored; the govern- 

 ment makes large appropriations for 

 the scientific bureaus, but scarcely 

 recognizes the National Academy com- 

 posed of our most eminent scientific 

 men. Professor Newcomb hopes that 

 the Carnegie Institution may attract to 

 Washington men of world-wide reputa- 

 tion and strong personality, who will 

 introduce an academic element into the 

 political atmosphere of the capital. 



The extent to which scientific work 

 has been discouraged in America by 

 lack of social recognition is difiicult to 

 determine. Greater honor for intellec- 

 tual distinction might attract young 

 men to a scientific career, whereas wor- 

 ship of wealth may direct too much of 

 the activity of the country to com- 

 merce. But the fact that conditions in 

 America differ from those in Euro- 

 pean nations and that conditions in the 

 twentieth century diflfer from those in 

 the nineteenth, does not of necessity in- 

 dicate a retrograde movement. Aristoc- 

 racies of wealth leisure and culture 

 have vmdoubtedly been favorable to sci- 

 ence, literature and art; but it may be 

 our part to prove that under existing 

 conditions a democracy is still more 

 favorable. The era of the amateur 

 scientist is passing; science must now 

 be advanced by the professional expert. 

 The student of science should be ac- 

 corded an income commensurate with 

 his services, but the routine of social 

 functions in foreign capitals can 

 scarcely be regarded as favorable to 

 scientific research. Darwin's ill-health 

 and enforced isolation in the country 

 enabled him to do the work he did, 

 whereas social engagements did not 

 improve Huxley's purely scientific 

 work. The lack of a hereditary aristoc- 

 racy and of a single national social 

 center may not in the end be hurtful to 

 science. If the scientific man is con- 

 sulted as an expert and his ad%nce is 

 followed, he may be Avilling to forego 

 invitations to dinner and the patronage 

 of society. Members of the cabinet and 



