EDITOR'S PREFACE 



AT the death of Simon Newcomb, it was stated in one of our 

 journals that he had left "a record wholly blameless and wholly 

 salutary, whose work added to the only permanent wealth of na- 

 tions." In this view is found the key-note of the present volume. 

 In the extension and coordination of human experience, in the 

 widening of the boundaries of knowledge and in the attainment of 

 greater exactness in the details, is found the only permanent 

 wealth of nations. All this constitutes the subject-matter of science, 

 and in science we find the basis for the development of the finest 

 of fine arts, that of human conduct. As we understand better the 

 universe around us, our relations to others and to ourselves, the 

 behavior of our race becomes rationalized. It becomes possible 

 for us to keep ourselves clean, and to make ourselves open-minded, 

 friendly and God-fearing. In the achievements of science, there- 

 fore, we may properly find the only permanent wealth of nations. 

 It is the only wealth which is superior to fire and flood, the only 

 wealth beyond the reach of entanglements of political intrigue, or 

 the wanton ravages of war. 



To the men who have widened the boundaries of human knowl- 

 edge, we owe a debt which we can repay only by a friendly remem- 

 brance of the work these men have done. We owe them our 

 gratitude for their successes, and their mistakes call on us only for 

 our sympathy. No one knows their struggles or their achievements 

 so well as those who have followed them over the same paths. 



In this fact the present volume finds its reason for being. Mr. 

 Henry Holt, whom we may without offense call "our beloved 

 publisher," first planned this book. It was his desire that it 

 should contain short and sympathetic biographies of fifteen leaders 

 in American science, each one written by a man in some degree 



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