PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES. 41 



the discoverer of the future will require, but at the same time the 

 greater will be the facilities for imparting that knowledge. The fad 

 for compelling every student of physics or chemistry to discover all 

 of his facts for himself will not endure. He will be permitted to 

 store his mind and memory with the accomplishments of the past, 

 repeating and verifying these to the extent necessary to fix the most 

 fundamental, and to discipline his powers of observation and deduc- 

 tion, and to train him in manipulation. He will then make discov- 

 eries of his own, if he has the natural endowment, without which no 

 education and no opportunity is of any avail. 



One of the most distinguished physicists of the present day ex- 

 pressed the view that the physics of the future would consist in 

 working on known jDhenomena and determining constants to the 

 fourth decimal place, or words to that effect. Since then the Roent- 

 gen rays have been discovered by a worker in pure science, whose ex- 

 periments would certainly have been ruled out by the utilitarians, 

 but who has received unstinted praise because of the practical appli- 

 cations that have been made of his discovery. Since then a more 

 remarkable discovery has been made, of which few, comparatively, 

 know as yet. I refer to the radio-activity of matter. I hold in my 

 hand a mineral of very ordinary appearance, which none of you would 

 look at twice unless your attention was especially drawn to it. Yet 

 this humble substance, without any known source of stimulation, is 

 constantly emitting radiations that will penetrate opaque substances 

 and affect a photographic plate, and possess other properties that 

 make them an unsolved riddle to the physicist. Within fifteen years 

 a revolution has taken place in our views concerning the condition of 

 substances in solution. A new view, supported by its power to co- 

 ordinate diverse known phenomena and to suggest lines of research 

 that in turn add new force to itself, has carried everything before it. 

 It may not, probably will not, remain as it is, but it is a step in the 

 upward progress. Within ten years, so every-day a thing as air has, 

 by the searching methods of modern chemistry and physics, yielded 

 no less than five new elements, that apparently exhibit the hitherto ^ 

 unknown jjroperty of possessing no power to enter into chemical 

 combination. No, it will be several years before there are no discov- 

 eries remaining to be made in physical science. 



I believe, however, that the greatest progress of the future will not 

 be in the fundamental general sciences, chemistry and physics, but in 

 the special sciences all of which rest on them. The study of the 

 phenomena that involve life, both vegetable and animal, is to lead to 

 tangible results. The progress that is being made now in physiolog- 

 ical chemistry, especially as related to disease and immunity, is sur- 



