46 Kansas Academy of Science. 



for the betterment of humanity. Natural laws are inductions 

 from facts and are necessarily successive approximations. 

 They explain the main causes and relations, but many details 

 of all are still to be worked out. The scientists of the nine- 

 teenth century have given us these first approximations. No 

 one doubts, in the future investigation of the details and ap- 

 plications, under all conceivable conditions of our present 

 knowledge of nature, but that new truths will be found which 

 will give wider, broader and deeper generalizations. 



The trend of the ages, on the whole, has been upward. Our 

 present scientific age is the evolution of the mind which seeks 

 freedom to think, to act for itself, and to be open to the con- 

 viction of any truth. Yet it demands facts on which to base 

 its conclusions. The various scientific appliances give the 

 masses time to acquire intellectual and spiritual growth. 



A full knowledge and control of nature is man's destiny and 

 one of his greatest needs. To enable our future leaders to 

 comprehend and to perceive perfectly what the knowledge 

 and control of nature is, and how the steps may be increased 

 by which this is gained, is a duty that belongs to each of us. 

 Let our motto be the service of our work to humanity. Let 

 us work shoulder to shoulder with all our powers for greater 

 gifts and larger appropriations, that we may not be hampered 

 for want of means in the investigations of any and all truth, 

 so that we may bequeath to the next century the solution of 

 many of the present unsolved problems, that we may aid in 

 lifting the burdens from the wearied and removing every 

 vestige of prejudice and superstition from the minds of men. 

 This accomplished, and our work will not have been in vain. 



