THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 



57i 



last month recalls vividly his great 

 services to higher education. Dr. Eliot 

 has now resigned the presidency of 

 Harvard to take effect next spring, 

 when he will have served forty years 

 in the office, and will be in his seventy- 

 fifth year. Mr. Gilman was at the time 

 of his resignation in full vigor of body 

 and mind and was able afterwards to 

 undertake the difficult task of organ- 

 izing the Carnegie Institution, while 

 performing many other public services. 

 President Eliot has never seemed more 

 competent to direct the affairs of a 

 university than at present; there has 

 not during the past forty years been a 

 time when he has been so gladly fol- 

 lowed as a leader. He is likely to 

 remain for years to come the chief 

 influence at Harvard and the leading 

 private citizen of the United States. 



At the inaguration of Mr. Gilman as 

 president of the Johns Hopkins Univer- 

 sity on February 22, 1876, Mr. Eliot 

 said: "In the natural course of your 

 life you will not see any large part of 

 the real fruits of your labors; for to 

 build a university needs not years only, 

 but generations." This is only partly 

 true. The traditions and ideals of the 

 university are a long growth, but they 

 may be transplanted to a new soil and 

 flourish there. Relatively to other in- 

 stitutions at least, it is probable that 

 the Johns Hopkins will never again be 

 so great as it was in the eighties, and 

 Harvard will never again be so pre- 

 eminent as it is at the close of Mr. 

 Eliot's administration. The seven pro- 

 fessors on the faculty of the Johns 

 Hopkins at the beginning far surpassed 

 the average of any present faculty, and 

 the hundred students in the early years, 

 the average of any present student 

 body. This great feat was again re- 

 peated by Mr. Gilman when the med- 

 ical school was organized. Harvard 

 has accomplished more in the past 

 forty years than during the preceding 

 centuries of its history. It set stand- 

 ards of freedom and culture when such 

 standards were most needed. It now 



shares its leadership with other insti- 

 tutions and will probably fall behind 

 the greater of the state universities. 



There is more instinctive admiration 

 for the puritan aristocrat than for the 

 opportunist, but in so far as Mr. Eliot 

 stands for the plan of free electives, 

 for culture prerequisite to the profes- 

 sional school, and Mr. Gilman for a 

 group system of studies leading chiefly 

 to the professional school and research, 

 the majority of scientific men will side 

 with the latter. 



Mr. Eliot's position could only be 

 filled by a man of equal distinction 

 after forty years of service. It is prob- 

 ably well that it can not be filled. The 

 constitution of the state of Massa- 

 chusetts places measures before men. 

 It is - better for the university to be a 

 democracy of scholars, rather than for 

 its scholars to be subject to the will of 

 one man. The Harvard corporation 

 will not purposely reorganize the uni- 

 versity on a democratic and representa- 

 tive basis, but they will probably con- 

 tribute to this end by the president 

 whom they will elect. 



SCIENTIFIC ITEMS 



We record with regret the death of 

 O. T. Mason, head curator of anthro- 

 pology in the U. S. National Museum; 

 of Dr. Francis H. Snow, formerly 

 chancellor and professor of entomology 

 in the University of Kansas, and of 

 Professor Berger, the eminent French 

 surgeon. 



Theee was held at the Sorbonne in 

 Paris, on October 4, a meeting in mem- 

 ory of the great chemist, Marcellin 

 Berthelot. M. Raymond Poincare made 

 an address on his work, and was fol- 

 lowed by M. Falliere, president of the 

 Republic. — A bronze tablet to the mem- 

 ory of the late Major James Carroll, 

 eminent for his work on yellow fever, 

 was unveiled in the main medical build- 

 ing of the University of Maryland, on 

 November 11. Dr. William H. Welch 

 delivered the principal address. 



