312 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



built at a cost of $15,000,000 may be an 

 asset or a burden. An equal sum spent 

 in selecting and educating 3,000 scien- 

 tific men would nearly double the num- 

 ber of men the country competent to 

 advance science. The dreadnaught is 

 a continual expense, it depreciates 'it 

 the rate of a million dollars a year, Its 

 existence tends to exert an influence 

 toward a war of aggression. The three 

 thousand scientific men would add < o 

 the wealth of the country in peace, to 

 its strength in a war of defense. If 

 two years ago the officers of the Ger- 

 man army had been put on the ships of 

 the British navy and the ships had been 

 sunk in the Atlantic, it would have been 

 for the welfare of the world. If the 

 number of men engaged in scientific re- 

 search and in the applications of sci- 

 ence could be doubled, the gain would 

 be incalculable. 



If we wish to make the nation strong 

 in defense we should care for our chil- 

 dren and our schools, for our scientific 

 men and our universities — in this par- 

 ticular number of The Popular Sci- 

 ence Monthly it may be permitted to 

 add — for our journals devoted to the 

 diffusion and advancement of science. 



SCIENTIFIC ITEMS 



We record with regret the death of 

 Frederick Ward Putnam, the distin- 

 guished anthropologist of Harvard Uni- 

 versity; of Dr. John Ulric Nef, head 

 of the department of chemistry of the 

 University of Chicago, and of Dr. 

 Joseph Austin Holmes, director of the 

 U. S. Bureau of Mines. 



The American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science held a success- 

 ful meeting at San Francisco, Berkeley, 



! and Stanford University, during the 

 first week of August. The address of 

 the president, Dr. W. W. Campbell, di- 

 rector of the Lick Observatory, which 

 was printed in the issue of Science for 

 August 20, is entitled ' ' Science and 



{ Civilization." 



A marble chair is to be placed in the 

 open-air Greek Theater of the Univer- 



' sity of California in honor of Eugene 

 Waldemar Hilgard, professor of agri- 

 culture and dean of the College of 

 Agriculture from 1875 to 1906, and 



i now professor emeritus.- — Professor I?. 

 A. Millikan, of the department of phys- 

 ics, has been elected president of the 

 University of Chicago Chapter of Phi 

 Beta Kappa. 



Dr. William H. Welch, professor of 

 pathology in the Johns Hopkins Univer- 

 sity, and Dr. Simon Flexner, director 

 of the laboratories of the Eockefeller 

 Institute for Medical Eesearch, have 

 sailed for China where they go on be- 

 '< half of the China Medical Board of the 

 Eockefeller Foundation to report on the 

 medical schools and hospitals. — The 

 schooner George B. Cluett, chartered by 

 the Crocker Land relief expedition to 

 go in quest of Donald B. MaeMillan 

 and the members of his party in Green- 

 land, has sailed from North Sydney, 

 Nova Scotia. Dr. Edmund Otis Hovey, 

 of the American Museum of Natural 

 History, chairman of the Crocker Land 



Exploration Committee, is in charge. 



i 



Governor Dunne has signed the bill 



giving $5,000,000 to the University of 



. Illinois for the biennium. It is the 



largest grant made in a single law to 



any university in the United States. 



