SOME ASPECTS OF AMERICAN ASTRONOMY 8i 



active support of the public. If he is disappointed in com- 

 manding these requirements, if he finds neither co-operation 

 nor support, if some great scheme to which he may have de- 

 voted much of his hfe thus proves to be only a castle in the 

 air, he may feel that nature has dealt hardly with him in not 

 endowing him with passions like to those of other men. 



In treating a theme of perennial interest one naturally 

 tries to fancy what the future may have in store. If the 

 traveler, contemplating the ruins of some ancient city which 

 in the long ago teemed with the life and activities of genera- 

 tions of men, sees every stone instinct with emotion and the 

 dust alive with memories of the past, may he not be similarly 

 impressed when he feels that he is looking around upon a seat 

 of future empire — a region where generations yet unborn may 

 take a leading part in molding the history of the world? What 

 may we not expect of that energy which in sixty years has 

 transformed a straggling village into one of the world's great 

 centers of commerce? May it not exercise a powerful in- 

 fluence on the destiny not only of the country but of the world? 

 If so, shall the power thus to be exercised prove an age'nt of 

 beneficence, diffusing light and life among nations, or shall it 

 be the opposite? 



The time must come ere long when wealth shall outgrow 

 the field in which it can be profitably employed. In what 

 direction shall its possessors then look? Shall they train a 

 posterity which will so use its power as to make the world 

 better that it has lived in it? Will the future heir to great 

 wealth prefer the intellectual hfe to the life of pleasure? 



We can have no more hopeful answer to these questions 

 than the estabhshment of the Universit}^ of Chicago in the 

 very focus of the commercial activity of the west. Its con- 

 nection with the great Yerkes observatory suggests some 

 thoughts on science as a factor in that scheme of education 

 best adapted to make the power of a wealthy community a 

 benefit to the race at large. When we see what a factor 

 science has been in our present civihzation, how it has trans- 

 formed the world and increased the means of human enjoy- 

 ment by enabling men to apply the powers of nature to their 

 own uses, it is not wonderful that it should claim the place in 



Vol. 7-tJ 



