EDITOR'S PREFACE 7 



writing off-hand Elizabethan drama, of a degree of merit not 

 surpassed by any who have written the like since the days of the 

 great dramatists themselves. 



We find again in the well-ordered lives of most of these men of 

 real greatness, no warrant for the notion that the "superman" will 

 rise superior to the canons of common morality and common 

 decency. They loved their wives, they cherished their families, 

 they never figured in problem plays. The one or two exceptions 

 which the acute historian may discover only serve to emphasize 

 the rule that with sound brains go sound morals. 



To compare these men with a like number of like men in Eng- 

 land, Germany or France, would be a problem too difficult to be 

 treated here. We are accustomed to hearing our real greatness 

 underrated, while the petty incidents of new world life have been 

 subjects of much cheap boasting. In brief, I believe that these 

 names deserve to stand with the highest in their generation, and 

 that no nation could require a better record than theirs. Germany 

 has more men of scientific eminence for her population. England 

 has fewer. But the greatest of England are in no way less than 

 the greatest of Germany. Social conditions and legal require- 

 ments drive students of all grades and of all professions in Ger- 

 many to the Universities. The fees of many doctors call strong 

 men to the University, when such men in England or in America 

 would be occupied in other ways. German professors supported 

 by fees may teach or study as they like. Once chosen to a profes- 

 sorship the rest depends on their choice. American professors 

 paid directly for teaching, largely with public funds, and never 

 by the fees of their students, must perforce teach. As our universi- 

 ties are organized, half gymnasium, half university, the ideal of 

 research can be present with but few of them; actual achievement 

 in investigation with still fewer. Yet, taking the field at large, I 

 cannot sympathize with those who find little to praise in American 

 science. In the fields cultivated in the closet and the library, 

 Germany is preeminent, for she has many closets and many libra- 

 ries. In the fields which carry men into the open topograph- 

 ical geology; paleontology; geographical distribution; faunology; 



