thinking that has proved fruitful in any subject — that is what 

 we mean when we call it scientific. It is not a peculiar develop^ 

 ment of thinking for highly specialized ends ; it is thinking, so 

 far as thought has become conscious of its proper ends and 

 of the equipment indispensable for success in their pursuit." 

 Our relations to the progress of scientific investigation within 

 the state, important as they may be, are really overshadowed, 

 as it seems to me, by those which we bear, or ought to bear, 

 to the progress and improvement of scientific education. Topics 

 of this description are most commonly dealt with by bodies 

 too narrowly limited in their membership to see the subject 

 equally well in all its bearings, and their conclusions are hence 

 likely to be partial and tentative only. The Academy has, how- 

 ever, within its active membership, scientific investigators of 

 various sorts, university and college professors, normal and high 

 school teachers of the several sciences, and a considerable body 

 of picked, but fairly representative patrons and supporters of 

 all kinds of schools ; and I can think of no organization better 

 constituted to discuss our special educational problems in a 

 broad, intelligent, and effective way. We shall have tomorrow, 

 I hope, a favorable example of such a discussion in the con- 

 tributions of our symposium ; and to the participants in that 

 discussion I am pleased to be able to leave the illustration and 

 development of some of the ideas which I have here tried to 

 present. If the outcome shall be the appointment of a carefully 

 selected, composite committee on scientific education in Illinois, 

 and if that committee shall do its best to present to the Acad- 

 emy next year a well-grounded, well-rounded discussion of 

 the subject, with recommendations for our procedure, I think 

 that we shall all have reason to congratulate ourselves that 

 this Academy exists ; and if, in addition, the Academy shall be 

 able to exert continuously upon scientific investigation, upon 

 education, and upon the life of the people, something of the 

 unifying, organizing, rationalizing, and corrective but generally 

 stimulating and educative influence which I have here described 

 as its reasonable function, I am sure that it will presently come 



