APPENDIX A LI 
effort. It is a significant fact that the establishment of modern 
learned societies coincides closely in time with the Renaissance move- 
ment. Telesio, mentioned above, established one of the earliest 
mathematico-physical societies—the Academy of Cosenza. Other 
Italian societies of similar scope were founded in Rome in 1603, in 
Florence in 1657, and the Royal Society of London dates from 1660 
or earlier. Organized research in universities was of slower growth. 
In them the medieval spirit was tenacious of life, and it was only 
in the nineteenth century, in Germany, at the close of the Napoleonic 
wars, that research, not only in natural philosophy, but in the whole 
field of knowledge, became the basis of the German educational system ; 
and I might remark, without going into details, that the university 
systems of France and the other principal countries of Europe, with 
the exception of Great Britain, are in the main parallel with that 
of Germany, although not so consistently elaborated. To understand 
then what organized university research means in the fullest devel- 
opment which it has hitherto attained, let us turn our attention a 
little to Germany, of the educational system of which it forms an 
essential part. 
We are so subject to the authority of words that it is difficult 
for us to realize that the organization called a university in Germany 
is almost entirely different in scope and object from the institution 
which we so designate in this country. Hitherto, at least in England 
and Canada, the function of the university has mainly been to im- 
part a general and liberal education, continuing and completing the 
beginning already made in the secondary school. Speaking generally, 
I may say that under the German system the work of our secondary 
schools and universities combined is performed by the gymnasium, 
the nine or ten years’ training of which leaves the young man of nine- 
teen or twenty years of age with a much better liberal education 
than that possessed by the average graduate in arts of an English, 
Canadian or American university. How this is accomplished it is 
not my purpose here to explain. There is no doubt, however, as to 
the fact, which is substantiated both by the nature of the curriculum 
of the gymnasium and by the testimony of those familiar with both 
systems. In this connection I recall the observation made to me 
on one occasion by a professor here, himself a wrangler of high stand- 
ing in Cambridge, who remarked that it was always a mystery to 
him how the German gymnasium attained such extraordinary results, 
results which, he added, it would be hopeless to expect in England, 
while on the other hand I have more than once heard German pro- 
fessors express surprise at the meagre equipment of university gradu- 
ates from America. 
