2o 4 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



the years that I spent in Berlin, I must acknowledge that the help I 

 received directly from Helmholtz was not great, but we all felt such 

 an unbounded admiration and respect for the great man, such a pride 

 in reading his investigations as they appeared, and trying to under- 

 stand them, that I would not exchange those memories for any amount 

 of assistance in the preparation of a doctor's dissertation. After spend- 

 ing the four happiest years of my life in this atmosphere, when it came 

 time to return home it was with some misgivings that I began to con- 

 sider the prospects of the life about to begin. On the steamer return- 

 ing I fell in with a classmate from whom I learned something of 

 a new institution in which great stress was laid on research, a fact 

 that produced an agreeable stimulus in many others than myself, as 

 I have since learned. 



The foundation of the Johns Hopkins University in 1876 

 marked an epoch in education and in science in this country, for 

 into it President Gilman succeeded in gathering such a body of strong 

 and enthusiastic scholars all permeated by the spirit of research and 

 production as had never been got together in this country. What 

 American physicist does not owe something to the life and work of 

 Rowland, what biologist to that of Brooks? From that remarkable 

 circle of inspiring teachers came one who was to furnish the creative 

 ideas for this Clark University, where the idea of research, of the 

 production of fruit as the criterion of vitality, was to be emphasized 

 as had never before been the case in this country. The idea of found- 

 ing a university without a collegiate department was derided in some 

 quarters. " No students to teach ! What do your professors do then ? " 

 was the question frequently asked. And yet the prospect was un- 

 speakably alluring to many young men. One of my colleagues tells 

 me of a letter that he received from a friend who declared that on 

 reading the first announcement of Clark University he felt like selling 

 all he had and going there. This I believe was the feeling of many 

 others. I was not so fortunate as to be here the first year, but I have 

 had described to me by colleagues the exhilaration of the start in the 

 race, in the company of a band of leaders, mostly young, but already 

 eminent, and every one imbued with the determination to do all that 

 in him lay toward the increase of knowledge and the glory of his 

 country. 



Of the history of the university it is not for me to speak. My 

 remarks are not intended to be of local, but of general, application. 

 My main contention is of the indispensability of research, by all 

 teachers, not only in universities, as a means of vivification and fructi- 

 fication. It is hardly necessary to speak of the necessity to the com- 

 munity of research, on account of its practical applications. Of this 

 the public is becoming decidedly sensible. To say nothing of those 



