NEW CONCEPTIONS IN SCIENCE 



fair to compare for a moment the work of the two. 

 The Smithsonian has no such resources, no such 

 equipment, and, it may be added, no such far- 

 reaching aims. 



It is to be noted in passing that almost all of 

 the courses of the chief university of France, the 

 Sorbonne, are equally open to the public, with 

 neither formality nor price. There, for the trouble 

 of entering its walls, at almost any time you may 

 hear the chief luminaries of French science and 

 French letters ; you may listen to the elegant periods 

 of M. Faguet, or, under the grace of M. Moisson's 

 facile discourse, feel the most recondite subjects 

 take on the allures of romance. So far as I know, 

 this is true of no American university. 



Paris has yet a fourth institution very close of 

 kin to the Pasteur and the College. A couple of 

 miles to the east of the university stands the old 

 Jardin des Plantes, made famous by the genius of 

 Cuvier. There a large number of professorships, 

 touching all the various departments of scientific 

 instruction, are set aside for original minds who 

 seem to have a work in the scientific world to do. 

 They are "blue ribbon" posts, and afford inde- 

 pendence, leisure, and stimulus for that patient, un- 

 remitting, undiscouraged toil which is at once the 

 condition and the source of the best scientific work. 

 There Professor Becquerel made his astonishing 



350 



