THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



335 



stitutions established by private in- 

 itiative have been assisted by the State, 

 and State institutions have received 

 large sums from private individuals. 

 The New York institutions referred to 

 above — the American Museum of Nat- 

 ural History, the Metropolitan Museum 

 of Art, the Public Library, the Botani- 

 cal Gardens and the Zoological Park — 

 are in almost equal measure supported 

 by the city and by citizens of the city. 

 Johns Hopkins University, the Univer- 

 sity of Pennsylvania, Cornell University 

 and other privately endowed institu- 

 tions have received assistance from the 

 State, without any decrease in private 

 gifts, while the State universities, Cali- 

 fornia for example, are receiving large 

 private endowments in addition to their 

 support from the State. These condi- 

 tions may not last, but at all events 

 they obtain at the present time, and we 

 find the country in which the largest 

 gifts from private individuals are made 

 for education and science to be the 

 country in which they are most liber- 

 ally supported by the Government. 



Never before has any government 

 made such great appropriations for the 

 development of the resources of the 

 country or for the advance of science 

 as the Congress which has just ad- 

 journed. We may take for example 

 the Department of Agriculture, for 

 which the appropriation is $4,023,500, 

 an increase of more than $280,000 over 

 the appropriation for the preceding 

 year. Every one familiar with the con- 

 ditions at Washington and throughout 

 the country will know that this large 

 sum of money is expended with the ut- 

 most economy, and there is no doubt 

 but what the money invested by the 

 nation is returned to the people many 

 fold in the course of every year. Some 

 of the items of the bill deserve special 

 notice. Thus, a new agricultural ex- 

 periment station is to be established in 

 the Hawaiian Islands, and the work of 

 the Weather Bureau is to be extended 

 to them. The agricultural resources 

 and capabilities of Porto Rico are to be 



investigated, and bulletins of informa- 

 tion in English and in Spanish are to 

 be distributed to the inhabitants. The 

 division of chemistry is to investigate 

 the use of food preservatives and color- 

 ing matter, determine their relations 

 to health and establish the principles 

 which should guide their use.' The 

 division of forestry receives an increase 

 of $40,000 and the Weather Bureau an 

 increase of over $35,000. Other items of 

 the appropriation act are as follows: 

 Biological Survey, $30,300, an increase 

 of $2,740; Division of Botany, $43,080, 

 an increase of $14,280; Nutrition In- 

 vestigation, $17,500, an increase of 

 $2,500; Division of Pomology, $18,400; 

 Public Road Inquiry, $14,000, an in- 

 crease of $6,000; Division of Statistics, 

 $146,160; Library, $14,000; and Mu- 

 seum, $2,260. 



While American men of wealth 

 have given freely of their means for the 

 promotion of education and science, 

 they have not so often devoted their 

 own time to its service. This is nat- 

 ural, as the wealth has in most cases 

 been acquired by the present generation, 

 and it is in succeeding generations, 

 when families have been established, 

 that leisure and wealth will give a class 

 similar to that which has accomplished 

 so much for Great Britain and to a 

 lesser extent for Germany and France. 

 Still, it is the case that the heads of 

 two of our chief universities are men 

 of great wealth, who have devoted not 

 only their means, but also their services 

 to the cause of education, and there are 

 in our universities and other institu- 

 tions many who hold their positions 

 purely out of interest in their work, 

 not as a means for their support. In 

 the next generation there will probably 

 be more representatives of a class to 

 which belonged the Duke of Argyll, 

 whose death we were compelled to re- 

 cord last month. Another man has since 

 died of a somewhat similar type. When 

 Colonel Lane-Fox somewhat unexpect- 

 edly succeeded to large estates in Wilt- 

 shire and Dorsetshire and assumed the 



