35 



er than five thousand persons in the United States are profes- 

 sionally engaged in science investigation or in the teaching of 

 science up to the research point. Of these it reckons that fewer 

 than one thousand should be counted real contributors. What 

 are one thousand among eighty millions? We must accept the 

 fact that several European nations excel us in this respect. 



It comes to mind that our inferiority herein may be due as 

 much to absence in the minds of the educated public of the aims 

 and actual work in science progress as to anything else. Here- 

 in is, perhaps, the best reason for such a symposium and for 

 such an organization as has just been perfected. These words 

 of Matthew Arnold seem appropriate: 



"The great men of culture are those who have had a passion 

 for diffusing, for making prevail, for carrying from one end of 

 society to the other, the best knowledge, the best ideas of their 

 time; who have labored to divest knowledge of all that was 

 harsh, uncouth, difficult, abstract, professional, exclusive; to 

 humanize it, to make it efficient outside the clique of the culti- 

 vated and learned." 



The point is, then, that our real science workers are both 

 too few and too remote from the general public. They work very 

 largely in another world than the one of common conception. 

 From the world of common knowledge they must, perhaps al- 

 ways, remain aloof. But may not the real value of their work 

 be at least adequately conceived? 



In Europe the magazines and even the shop windows furnish 

 evidence of the popular interest in science progress. Wherever 

 the forward movement is most active you catch a quick reflec- 

 tion of it in the popular press. There the public is said to be 

 really much concerned of late with what is sometimes called the 

 "passing of Darwinism." What does the American public know 

 or seriously care about Darwinism being on its death-bed?" 



