466 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



science. In this direction the benefactors of education and sci- 

 ence have still almost everything to do. It is, in fact, the field 

 that promises the greatest returns and the greatest blessings to 

 mankind. As examples of what such institutes signify, may be 

 mentioned the Pasteur Institute in Paris, the Zoological Station 

 at Naples, the Lick Observatory, and the Smithsonian Institution. 

 In what way could money bring swifter, surer, more magnificent, 

 or more lasting rewards than when invested in such foundations ? 

 Our country suffers from the lack of these,while it is burdened with 

 a plethora of impotent colleges. For this pathological overplus of 

 colleges, secreting a sort of purulent education, with little or none 

 of the saving basic properties of scientific culture, the best anti- 

 toxine would be the creation of research laboratories. There is no 

 antagonism between scientific and literary education ; but no one 

 will now venture to deny that culture implies something more 

 than a knowledge of words. Mr. Arnold's definition of culture — 

 " to know the best that has been thought and said in the world " 

 — needs the supplement furnished by Huxley : " Culture implies 

 the possession of an ideal, and the habit of critically estimating 

 the value of things by comparison with a theoretic standard. Per- 

 fect culture should supply a complete theory of life, based upon a 

 clear knowledge alike of its 'possibilities and of its limitations." 

 " Observation and reflection " — the significant words with which 

 Carl Ernst von Baer closed his Embryology of Animals — connote 

 mental attributes that are the fundamentals of culture. They 

 imply powers and habits best nurtured by scientific, but best pol- 

 ished and adorned by literary, training. Both means of culture 

 are to be combined, but duly balanced. My plea is not against 

 any source of culture, but against exaggerating one out of propor- 

 tion with another. At present we are in desperate need of more 

 science, and my appeal is in behalf of science in general, and biol- 

 ogy in particular. I rejoice in the splendid gifts to astronomy, 

 physics, and chemistry, but I feel impelled to urge that that great 

 division of sciences, comprising the whole animate world, has 

 claims upon the enlightened generosity of this country which 

 have not yet been fairly met. The claim which I would place 

 foremost at the present moment is the urgent need of an Ameri- 

 can marine biological observatory. What grander commemora- 

 tion of the labors of Louis Agassiz at Penikese or of the efforts of 

 Spencer F. Baird at Woods Holl, or what higher and more fitting 

 tribute to the memory of the discoverer of this hemisphere, could 

 this centennial year bring than the foundation of such an observa- 

 tory ? My humble plea is but the echo of a chorus of voices a 

 thousand times more potent from the leading biologists of Amer- 

 ica and Europe. This weighty consensus of opinion shows so well 

 how the scientific world regards this subject, and how broadly and 



