32 • MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



render her an object of derision. Those who establish foundations for 

 teaching the sciences ought at least to understand their dignity. To con- 

 nect pecuniary speculation or commercial advantages with schemes for 

 promoting the progress of knowledge is to take crops without em])loying 

 manure; is to create sterility and destroy improvement. A scientific in- 

 stitution ought no more to be made an object of j)rofit than a hosj)itaI or 

 a charitable establishment. Intellectual wants are at least as worthy of 

 support as corporeal wants, and they ought to be provided for with 

 the same feeling of nobleness and liberality. The language expected by 

 the members of a scientific body from the directors ought not to be: 'We 

 have increased your proi)erty. We have raised the value of your shares.' 

 It ought rather to be: 'We have endeavored to apply your funds to use- 

 ful purposes, to promote the diffusion of science, to encourage discovery, 

 and to exalt the scientific glory of your country.'" 



As I have already stated, we are fortunate in living in an age which 

 at least partially appreciates and gives some support, although generally 

 inadequate, to scientific research. The Royal Institution of England, 

 founded by the learned and eccentric American, Benjamin Thompson, or 

 Count Rumford, has for the last hundred years been a great factor in 

 the development of scientific knowledge. It is probably true that there 

 is no other single place in the world where so many great scientific dis- 

 coveries have had their birth as in the old buildings on Albernuirle street. 

 Tlie Pasteur Institute in Paris, now richly endowed and magnificently 

 equipped, furnishes opportunities unsurpassed anywhere for bacteriolog- 

 ical research. Already the contributions made through these institutions 

 to the ]»rogress of science and the betterment of the human race hav*e 

 more than justified the expenditures that have been made in carrying on 

 the work. Indeed, the researches of Roux and Metschnikoff, to say noth- 

 ing of those of many of their assistants, have given us information by 

 means of which many lives have been s-ived and the domain of human 

 knowledge has been greatly extended. We are still accustomed to look 

 ui)on Russia as a half civilized country, but the appreciation that this 

 gr at vigorous nation is showing for scientific research is bound to mnke 

 Slavonic civilization a powerful competitor in the future history of the 

 world with Anglo-Saxon culture. The laborntories of experimental medi- 

 cine grouped together on one of the islnnds of the Neva near St. Peters- 

 burg furnish probably the most ideal place for scientific research now 

 existing in the world. The government hns erected caiincious laborntnries, 

 has equipped them with the latest and most improved instruments of pre- 

 cision, and has called to these laboratories its most eminent scientific 

 men. and has imposed upon them no other tafk than to search for truth 

 in the biological sciences. As we all know, scientific research hns been 

 most warmly nurtured for the last fifty years in Germany, and this has 

 done more for the solidification and permanence of the German EmT>ire 

 thnn has been accom]dished by political means. Fler numerous univer- 

 sities are liberally su])])orted by the state, abundantly su])plied with 

 facilities, and her best men are called to occupy her professorial posi- 

 tions. Not only has this been done, but the Kingdom of Prussia nlone 

 has built at Charlottenberg at a cost of twenty-one millions of marks a 

 great T)olytechnicum in whir-h eminent physicists and' chemists devote 

 their lives to the pursuit of knowledge. In emulation of Paris. Berlin 

 has the new Institute, turned over to Koch for his researches along medi- 



