DIVISION E UTILITARIAN SCIENCES 



(Hall 1, September 20, 10 a. m.) 

 SPEAKER: PRESIDENT DAVID STARR JORDAN, Leland Stanford, Jr., University. 



UTILITARIAN SCIENCE 



BY DAVID STARR JORDAN 



[David Starr Jordan, President of Leland Stanford, Jr., University since 1891. 

 b. January 19, 1851, Gainesville, Wyoming County, New York. M.S. Cornell 

 1872; LL.D. ibid. 1886; Ph.D. Butler University, 1880; M.D. University of 

 Indiana, 1875; Post-Graduate, Harvard University, London, Paris. Professor 

 of Biology, Butler University, 1875-79; Professor of Zofilogy, University of 

 Indiana, 1879-85; President of Indiana University, 1885-91; Associate of the 

 U. S. Fish Commission since 1878; Head of Bering Sea Commission, 1896-98; 

 President of California Academy of Sciences; Fellow of A. O. U.; Member of 

 American Philosophical Society, etc. Author of many books, including Fishes of 

 Northern and Middle America ; Science Sketches ; Manual of the Vertebrates ; 

 Guide to Study of Fishes; The Innumerable Company, Care and Culture of Men; 

 The Voice of the Scholar, etc.] 



IT falls to my lot to-day, to discuss very briefly, in accordance 

 with the Programme of this Congress, some of the common features 

 of utilitarian science, with a word as to present and future lines 

 of investigation or instruction in some of those branches of the 

 applications of knowledge which have been assigned to the present 

 division. 



Applied science cannot be separated from pure science; for pure 

 science may develop at any quarter the greatest and most unexpected 

 economic values; while on the other hand, the application of know- 

 ledge must ' await the acquisition of knowledge before any high 

 achievement can be reached. For these reasons, the classification 

 adopted in the present Congress, or any other classification of sciences 

 into utilitarian science and other forms of science, must be incom- 

 plete and even misleading. Whatever is true is likely some time 

 to prove useful, and all error is likely to prove some time disastrous. 

 From the point of view of the development of the human mind, all 

 truth is alike useful, and all error is alike mischievous. 



In point of development, pure science must precede utilitarian 

 science. Historically, this seems to be not true; for the beginnings 

 of science in general, as alchemy, astrology, and therapeutics, seem 

 to have their origin in the desire for the practical results of know- 

 ledge. Men wanted to acquire gold, to save life, to forecast the 

 future, not for knowledge's sake, but for the immediate results of 



