NEW CONCEPTIONS IN SCIENCE 



years. Science has many dreams, and the ever- 

 lasting fountain of Ponce de Leon is assuredly one. 



The main body of the work of the Pasteur Insti- 

 tute has now grown too severely technical to admit 

 of brief description ; it is enough to say that nowhere 

 else, perhaps, has so close an approach been made 

 to the solution of the most intimate problems of 

 hygiene, of health, and of life. 



Is it needful to add that we have no institution in 

 America comparable to the Pasteur Institute, no 

 great working laboratory where the investigator 

 may go with his hopes and his plans, and work upon 

 them advantageously and in peace? 



France has yet another institution of a slightly 

 different character, yet contributing to the same 

 end, the unimpeded pursuit of experimental science. 

 That is the College de France. Founded in the 

 days of the Splendor, and originally devoted chiefly 

 to theology and philosophy, it has within the cen- 

 tury taken on more and more the stamp of a re- 

 search institution. There the work of Magendie 

 and his great pupil, Claude Bernard, was done. 

 There Renan sat and taught. There M. Berthelot 

 has pursued uninterruptedly his fertile and fruitful 

 career. Each of its professors is expected to give, 

 once or twice a year, a series of lectures ; and these 

 have come to be more and more a summing up and 

 synthesis of the most recent work in each especial 



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