SIGMA XI II 



The formalities which thus far it has been your privi- 

 lege to witness have all had more particular reference to 

 the organization of which you now become a controlling 

 part. You have been told of things past; of what has 

 been; of things to be kept in memory by tradition, or 

 record more or less exact. You have assented to these 

 things rather as indicative of the general trend of your 

 own ambitions, your present purpose; and now there re- 

 mains to complete these simple ceremonies but one pro- 

 cedure more; this for the moment has been assigned to 

 me, and this now touches the hope, the expectation, the 

 duty of each individual of this class and looks wholly 

 to the future. 



Research in this modern world were not scientific, were 

 it not methodic; and, varied as it may betimes appear, 

 touching as it does every conceivable phase of the tan- 

 gible scheme of things, nevertheless in itself is compara- 

 tively simple and presents perhaps but three aspects, 

 finds employment in three rather sharply limited fields 

 of intellectual endeavor. In the first place, by dint of 

 the toil and labor of the men before us in time, science 

 has become possessed of a vast body of ascertained fact, 

 facts in physics, in astronomy, facts in geology or bot- 

 any; and it is evidently one important business of re- 

 search to see how, if possible, these facts may be made 

 serviceable in the economies of everyday life. Research 



