ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. 53 



Within my own memory, when tlie mowing machine was first introduced, 

 the men who had been mowing the grass with the scythe, feeling that their 

 work was gone, arose in some places as one man against this intrusion and 

 demolished this new machine. The same w^as true with the introduction 

 of the self-binder to replace the cradle, also the replacing of the horse street 

 cars in the cities with the cable and electric cars. The resistance to modern 

 scientific thought has been powerful not only in the orient, but also in our 

 own country. To overcome that resistance has required tact and great 

 perseverance. Like all reforms the greatest gain has been made by teaching 

 these new things to the youth in the public schools, colleges and universities. 



Even in the schools the progress has been slow, at least until recent years. 

 Dr. J. P. D. .John said he taught Chemistry in Moores Hill College in 1875 

 and did not perform a single experiment, and he was one of the most ad- 

 vanced teachers of that day. Who today Avould think of teaching in that 

 way? 



I think it is generally conceded that the greatest stimulus to scientific 

 thought in this century was the injection into the thinking world of Darwin's 

 Origin of Species in 1859. Not that everybody accepts his views but it has 

 served as a stimulus to thinking men, and has caused them to direct 

 their efforts in a way that has resulted in the most rapid development of 

 scientific thought in the history of the Avorld. Man must know how to learn 

 new truths. It has required the centuries past to teach him the experimental 

 method of investigation. 



Another event likewise has had a tremendous influence on scientific 

 thought, and this was the first marine laboratory established on the island of 

 Penikese in Buzzards Bay in the summer of 1873 by the greatest naturalist 

 of his time, Louis Agassiz. This Summer School gave the greatest inipetus 

 to the correct method of teaching the biological sciences and in an indirect 

 way to the other natural sciences. The students, fifty in number, were largely 

 teachers from the eastern states. Agassiz's purpose w^as to train these fifty 

 teachers in the right methods of work. They would carry into their schools 

 his views of scientific teaching. Then each of these schools would become a 

 center in its time to help others, until the influence toward real work in science 

 would extend throughout the educational system. This purpose has been 

 realized in a remarkable degree. Among the men who were in this school 

 were David Starr Jordan, William K. Brooks, Charles O. Whitman and 

 Charles S. Minot. Dr. Jordan is known throughout the world not only as a 

 great scientist but also as a most inspiring teacher. The students of Indiana 

 University and Leland Stanford University know how to sing his praises. 

 Only three years after this Summer School closed, Dr. Brooks began his 

 career at the Johns Hopkins University, this being the first year of that great 

 University. Every student of the school from 1876 to the day of his death 

 in 1908 felt the influence of his life and teaching. Dr. Whitman had a similar 

 but not such a long career at Chicago University as a center of influence, 



