304 POPULAR SCIEXCE MO XT II LY 



COMRADES IX ZEAL.* 



By DAVID STARR JORDAN, 



PRESIDENT OF LELAND STANFORD JR. UNIVERSITY. 



''["^HE Society of Sigma Xi was founded in 1880 at Cornell Univer- 

 -^ sity. Its godfather was Henry Slialer Williams, and its name, 

 artoudwv ^u'/co-yrj^. companions in zealous research, comrades in zeal, indi- 

 cates as well as two words can, even in that wonderful language of 

 the Greeks, the purpose of the society. It was intended to bind to- 

 gether scientific thought and action, the workers in pure science and 

 those who dignify it by its application to human affairs. 



The society has now its chapters in 16 American universities. Its 

 members number upwards of 2,500, about 500 of them active, that 

 is, still lingering about the university which is the center of the col- 

 lective efforts of Sigma Xi, the rest scattered over the world in the 

 various avocations appropriate to the zealous comradery. 



The society of Sigma Xi stands for the glory of research, the joy 

 of knowing, the uplift which comes from 'seeing things as they really 

 are,' and the doing the thing that such seeing shows us ought to be 

 done. Its essence is in Huxley's phrase the 'fanaticism for veracity,' 

 the zeal for fair play, that would not have even the least of nature's 

 records slurred over or wrongly interpreted. It stands at the same 

 time for the zeal for action, for the strenuous use of the knowledge 

 already acquired in the affairs of men. For pure science and applied 

 science it finds place alike, for each has its roots in independent re- 

 search, and in each the fanaticism for veracity is fundamental to the 

 liighest work. Its purpose is to excite this fanaticism for veracity, and 

 zeal for action among the university students of America, and to foster 

 it by means of the fellow-feeling among free spirits, ' Gemeingeist unter 

 freien Geistern, ' which was once declared to uphold scholarshiji in 

 Germany. 



For the Sigma Xi is a university organization dealing with uni- 

 versity men, and not directly with any others. Moreover, the society 

 is not the university itself. It is a small part of any one institution 

 — a large part only when taken in the aggregate. It gives no material 

 aids to scholarship. It builds no laboratories, establishes no libraries, 

 endows no fellowships, offers no prizes, grants no honors worthy of the 

 name. In its elections it picks out youth of promise, enlisting them 

 as privates in its service. It undertakes to crown no achievement. It 



* Address at the first annual banquet of the Honorary Society of Sigma Xi, 

 St. Louis, December 31, 1903. 



