8 EDITOR'S PREFACE 



taxonomy, Germany has some of the greatest of names, but her 

 great names are few beside those of the United States. If our 

 besetting sin is lack of intensity, as befits the breadth and length 

 of our continent, that of Germany is myopia, as befits a man 

 whose universe is limited to the field of his microscope. There 

 are many reasons which call the German from business life to the 

 University, and many reasons why science is the well-paid agent 

 of manufacture. With us there are many reasons which call a 

 man away from the classroom, and the intervals between classes 

 still constitute our period for research. 



Yet for all these deficiencies we shall find our remedies, and 

 these remedies in time will be potent. The roll of our scientific 

 men to-day shows a worthy succession to the long line from Rum- 

 ford to Brooks. With all defects in American education, there is 

 no falling off in ability nor in enthusiasm, nor in facility for con- 

 tact with things as they are. We may be therefore confident that 

 the volume of this series, which shall cover the twentieth instead 

 of the nineteenth century, will show great names, great achieve- 

 ments and great personalities, worthy to rank with the best of 

 these, our fathers in science, and such names, too, in ever increas- 

 ing numbers, even as proportioned to our wealth and our popula- 

 tion. 



DAVID STARR JORDAN. 



