Mercantile Library; 



NEW YORK. 

 THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



APRIL, 1893. 



SCIENCE AND THE COLLEGES.* 



By DAVID STAER JORDAN. 



WE have come together to-day to do our part in raising one 

 of the milestones which mark the progress of education in 

 America. Our interest in higher education brings us here, and 

 our interest in science; and, more than ever in the past, we 

 find these two interests closely associated. More and more each 

 year the higher education of America is becoming steeped in 

 science ; and in the extension of human knowledge the American 

 university now finds its excuse for being. 



I hope that in what I shall have to say I shall not be ac- 

 cused of undue glorification of science. I recognize in the fullest 

 degree the value of all agencies in the development of the human 

 mind. But the other departments of learning may each have its 

 turn. We are here to-day to dedicate a hall of science. We are 

 here in the interest of science teaching and scientific research. 

 When, in a few years to come, we may dedicate a hall of letters, 

 we shall sing the praises of poetry and literature. But to-day 

 we speak of science, in the full certainty that the humanities will 

 not suffer with its growth. All real knowledge is a help to all 

 other, and all real love of beauty must rest on love of truth. 



At this time, as we stand together by the side of the milestone 

 we have set up, on the breezy upland which marks the boundary 

 of our nineteenth century, it is worth while to glance back over 

 the depressing lowlands from which we have risen ; and, in our 

 discussion of the relations of the American college to science, 



* Read at the dedication of the Science Hall of the University of Illinois at Champaign, 

 November 16, 1892. 



vol. xlii. — 19 



