626 ENDOWMENT FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. 



able to ascertain, is there a single professorship endowed or founded, 

 even in part, for the avowed object of original scientific research. In- 

 struction, not discovery, is the only avowed object. It is to the great 

 credit of American professors and teachers that, with so much routine 

 work on their hands, and so little leisure for research, they should 

 hav e accomplished by purely voluntary studies so mucli as is shown in 

 their contributions to our scientific publications. 



To what is said above, perhaps a virtual exception should be made as 

 respects our astronomical observatories, in which, the labors of in- 

 struction being less, original work has been perhaps exi)ected, and 

 has been accomplished with most signal success. To some extent this 

 may possibly apply to our medical schools also. And in other depart- 

 ments, generally, wherever time and o])portunity have been afforded, 

 much original work has been done by our professors; some of it of the 

 first class. This is attested, not to mention living instances, by the 

 work of Prof. Henry at Princeton, Dr. Torrey at Columbia, Dr. Silli- 

 man at Yale, Dr. Gray at Harvard, and many others that might be 

 named. In a number of the States, also, and at Washington, there 

 have been maintained by the State or Nation a number of scientific 

 men, in connection with certain State or national interests, who have 

 accomplished most important results ; of these. Dr. James Hall, of this 

 State, is a conspicuous instance. At Harvard and at other colleges 

 some noble opportunities for special study have been also provided in 

 their scientific schools and museums;notably in the zoological museum, 

 the Jefferson Physical Laboratory, and the Pejibody Museum of Archoe- 

 ology at Cambridge, and also in the department of hygiene at the Univer- 

 sity of Pennsylvania. But in most of these the great complaint is the 

 lack of neccessary endowments to make possible the active advanced 

 work in original discovery for which those institutions are designed. 

 In the Peabody Museum there was in 1891 a gift of $10,000 by Mrs. 

 Hemenway to establish a post-graduate fellowship; and also a gift of 

 like amount by Mr. "VYolcott, for the general support of the museum's 

 work. New York also has within a few years past seen spring up al- 

 most as by magic, through the efforts of a single leading spirit, sec- 

 onded by other x^ublic spirited men and women, and by municipal aid, a 

 museum of natural history that bids foir to stand in the front rank of 

 scientific opportunities; but the endownnents of fellowships ;ind pro- 

 fessors necessary to make its opportunities available in active re- 

 search are as yet wanting. 



England holds a position midway between the United States and 

 Germany. Her scientific men lament her deficiencies. They are striv- 

 ing to increase their means for scientific work, and are doing so yearly. 



If experience teaches anything, it is that no broad and general de- 

 velopment of scientific work of the first class is possil)le, except either 

 through independent establishments for special work, or else by the 

 university system, in which professors in science and their assistants 

 are first selected on account of their previftus distinction in original 



