256 On the Campus 



history has been so written as not immediately to suggest 

 the necessity for revision. In the higher groups of 

 ^plant-life the life-history of perhaps five-hundred is 

 more or less definitely known. In the animal world we 

 are only beginning to ask questions; even the whole 

 problem of our relationship to the fauna at our feet is 

 yet but dimly a matter of surmise. 



Nor is this all for your encouragement. By private 

 beneficence many of the universities of the country have 

 established graduate schools for the express purpose of 

 fostering research and original investigation. Carnegie 's 

 great gift at Washington is the most notable of these. 

 The Carnegie letter sets forth his purpose, "which is to 

 promote original research, paying particular attention 

 thereto ; to discover the exceptional man in every depart- 

 ment of study, wherever and whenever found, and to en- 

 able him by financial aid to make the work for which he 

 seems especially designed his life-work, to secure for the 

 United States of America the leadership in the domain of 

 discovery and utilization of new forces for the benefit of 

 mankind. ' ' 



This sounds almost like an endowment of the Sigma 

 Xi. Carnegie means simply that hereafter no research 

 work shall suffer for lack of means to keep alive the 

 worker. This will certainly be a source of wonderful 

 help and stimulus. Many are no doubt turned aside even 

 to-day from research as a career simply because of the 

 uncertainty of securing therein a livelihood. "The la- 

 borer is worthy of his hire." Yea, verily; but no true 

 son of science or of art labors for his hire. Mr. Darwin 

 was fortunate in that private fortune left him without 



